Booking tickets on IRCTC is becoming a legend now – Infact phrases like “_____ is like booking a Tatkal ticket on IRCTC” . Anything that is extremely tough or next to impossible is in most cases equated to booking IRCTC tickets.
Do you want some examples? Here they are…
Buying Xiaomi Mi3 from Flipkart is just like getting a tatkal ticket from IRCTC #Xiaomi #Flipkart
— Ayush Tripathi (@Ayush07) August 9, 2014
While, availability of tickets is one factor, the issue is usually associated with bottleneck on IRCTC servers during peak hours.
But it may all change now!
Railway Minister Sadanand Gowda will be launching new revamped IRCTC next generation e-ticketing system today (13 August). The new system has been running in pilot mode on nget.irctc.co.in for quite sometime now and some of you may have already experienced it. However, going forward, it will be available to all on the main IRCTC website.
Around a year back CRIS started working on IRCTC upgrade project that cost an estimated 180 crore and it is now live. The new upgraded platform will will a capacity of booking 7200 tickets per minute. Previously, this capacity was limited to 2000 tickets. People who have used the new platform have given positive feedback. The IRCTC website now feels much more snappier and faster.
While the back-end capacity server has been improved, the look and feel of the website still remains ancient. Scrolling vertical and horizontal texts, animated banners are still strewn across the homepage. It is beyond me as to why IRCTC has not revamped the look & feel. With over 100 crores at their disposal, they could have easily redesigned the entire site for a better user experience!
Currently, around 4.5 lakh e-tickets are booked on an average day, which can go upto 5.5 – 6 lakh during peak seasons. IRCTC now has daily transactions of more than Rs. 53 crore as against Rs. 37 crore in 2013.
The new IRCTC site is live – Give it a try and let us know what you feel!