Indian Railways update: IRCTC to make its website faster, delays in ticket bookings to be fixed

Indian Railways is following up on its promise made in front of the Parliamentary committee to improve the health of the IRCTC website to eliminate the problem of slow-loading during ticket booking.

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Passengers of Indian Railways have often complained about the delays they face in confirmation of their train tickets on the IRCTC website arising from slow loading time. But Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has taken note of the problem and appointed an international consultant to improve the website's health. The timing is important as the railways is expecting an upsurge in the traffic ahead of the festive season. If the website is refurbished before the festive season, passengers can have a smooth online ticket booking experience.

Due to the heavy load on the IRCTC website during the festive season, the server frequently becomes too slow or crashes. Passengers are greatly inconvenienced as a result of this. There is also an issue with booking Tatkal tickets. However, Grant Thornton, one of the world's leading consulting firms, has been tasked with making the website as user-friendly as possible.

After receiving numerous complaints, the Railway Ministry previously assured the Parliamentary Standing Committee that it was working to resolve the issue of slow servers. If the IRCTC website's performance improves under Grant Thornton, not only will passengers benefit, but there will also be fewer crowds at railway counters.

In the last two to three years, e-ticketing has increased by 80 percent of total reserved tickets. IRCTC currently has more than a hundred million registered users. In 2016-17, the share of railway e-ticketing was around sixty per cent, but it has now increased to 80.5 percent.

Meanwhile, besides the IRCTC website's refurbishment, the Indian Railways has also planned multiple special trains to handle the increased number of passengers in the festive season. For instance, the railways have announced 74 new special trains for Ganesh Chaturthi and eight new special trains for Onam and Velankanni Church gate feast to cover South India.