In case you are wondering about the scarce availability of train tickets these days you might want to know a little bit about how things go down.
Tatkal service is an emergency ticket purchasing service that opens 24 hours before the train’s departure and has much higher fees. The passengers who successfully manage to book are assigned TQWL status once the set number of Tatkal Tickets has been filled.
The Tatkal scheme requires passengers to pay an additional fee in addition to the regular fare, which helps the railways collect more revenue. The maximum tatkal charges, according to information on the Indian Railways website, range between Rs150 and Rs300, depending on the class of travel—from second (sitting) to executive class.
The Railway Protection Force (RPF), in the year 2020 had discovered a scam in which illegal salesmen used special software to bypass the IRCTC website and book tickets illegally earlier this month.
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The RPF had earlier initiated ‘operation thunder’ to apprehend illegal ticket salesmen. Several railway agent booking centres were searched, and close to 400 touts were apprehended throughout 200 cities during the investigation.
While the task force managed to apprehend a few pranksters here and there, they were unable to apprehend the main perpetrator, Hamid Ashraf, a developer from Uttar Pradesh’s Basti area, who is believed to have fled the country. The RPF busted the multi-crore ticket booking scam by arresting Ghulam Mustafa, a software developer from Jharkhand, in Bhubaneshwar.
Tatkal bookings begin at 8 a.m., two days before the journey’s scheduled departure. People complain that they are unable to book tickets most of the time even under this system due to an error on the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) website, implying that the system may have been rigged.
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Feature Image designed by Saudamini Seth
Sources: The Federal, Moneylife, Republic World
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This post is tagged under: india, IRCTC, IRCTC booking, train travel, indian travellers
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