IRCTC To Increase Ticketing Capacity, Promises Faster Booking By March 2025

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) will soon reportedly ramp up the ticketing capacity to ensure that the passengers who book tickets don’t have to suffer in the waiting period. As per the reports, this process has started and will be finished by March 2025. Post this step, passenger’s tickets will be booked online and will not take waiting time after clicking. The process will reportedly begin immediately and the commuters will get the ticket, within a short interval. The organisation will also ensure that the commuters don’t face the problem of their money being deducted and then tickets not being issued. According to the reports, very soon, the commuters will face no trouble while booking the tickets.

IRCTC Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Sanjay Jain talked about the reason behind a long waiting time for problems like deduction of money while booking tickets, payment failure or waiting time for confirmed tickets. The CMD said that these procedures take a long time due to low capacity. It means that compared to the number of people who process online ticket booking, the booking capacity is less, due to which passengers have to face problems.

As per the reports, there are three crore IRCTC users across the country. At present, reportedly, more than nine lakh tickets are being booked online every day. These include online booking by passengers as well as agent booking. More than two crore passengers travel by train every day.

In 2023, The Indian Railways decided to upgrade the capacity of ticket booking from the current 25,000 to 2.25 lakh per minute. This decision was taken to improve the passenger reservation system. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the railways were upgrading the ticketing system, including software and hardware, for hassle-free ticket booking. As per the minister, the railways upgraded the system after providing details on steps to be taken to upgrade the system in the event of record allocations in the Union Budget.

What is IRCTC?

IRCTC was incorporated on September 27, 1999, as an extended arm of the Indian Railways. It was done to upgrade, professionalise and manage the catering and hospitality services at stations and on trains.