Booking train tickets on IRCTC were a pain for everyone of us and a regular commuter knows what it feels like to finally get a ticket after getting frustrated with the website.
Indian Railways has done a lot in the past year to make sure no one feels the wrath of slow loading website anymore, which led to easier bookings and more structured timings for tatkal tickets. In addition, tickets can also be booked via ICICI website and mobile app, which is a big relief for people in India.
What seems like an effort from IRCTC to reduce the load further and prevent scammers from booking multiple tickets, the minimum time to book a ticket has been fixed to a mandatory 35 seconds. According to Ministry of Railways, the minimum time to fill all details and book a ticket can take about 35 seconds, no lesser than that.
This will sweep out unnecessary fake bookings and allow genuine ones to get access to their choices. Many agents use bots and automatic softwares to fill out forms and book tickets in a fraction of a second, and hence can corner many tickets in shorter duration
Changes in booking system
Along with the usual filling of the form and entering details, to choosing the train and booking a seat by paying the booking amount, there will be three levels of security, thanks to Captcha.
Captcha codes are types of tests to differentiate between humans and computers. You will have to enter captcha at the time of log-in, at the time of reservation and at the time of payment.
An official statement released by Ministry of Railways mentions, “With these checks, it is not possible to book any opening tatkal ticket by any software being sold in the market earlier than 35 seconds.”
Earlier the minimum time was reduced to 10 seconds to allow easier and quicker bookings, however it was realized that a lot of bookings are coming through illegal sources, which could tamper with the system and claim more reservations within the allotted time.
Instead of blocking the illegal sources, Ministry of Railways proposes to hog more of your time, but provide secure and assured service. It might not be in favour of us, but then it is much better to wait 25 seconds more and have higher chances of getting a confirmation, rather than logging in and seeing there are no seats left.
Tatkal system was worst hit by such illegal methods and it makes complete sense to put these checks in place. According to official statement from Indian Railways, the whole process of filling details to entering captcha codes will take minimum 35 seconds, post which the user will be able to book. It may not be music to ears, but let’s appreciate the fact that IRCTC has come far from its deteriorating stage, and we only hope it will improve in the coming months.
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Although no software can book the tickets before 35 seconds, so no human can book it also. Overall it again comes to the same conclusion that the software can book faster.
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