NEW DELHI: The Indian Railway denied access to over 60 billion attempts to the e-ticketing system out of more than 97.53 billion requests made for access in the last six months of 2025.
It allowed booking through the e-ticketing to only 37.1 billion, as the rest, out of 97.53 billion, were bots.
The highest number of nearly 24.04 billion requests to access the e-ticketing system was made alone in October 2025.
October, being one of the festive months of India usually witnesses maximum rush for train tickets. Notably, the railway found that nearly 17 billion out of 24.04 billion requests were made by bots, and they were denied access to the e-ticketing system.
Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Minister of Railways, in a written reply to the Upper House of Parliament on Friday, said that several anti-fraud measures have been adopted to prevent unauthorised access and to ensure seamless booking for genuine users.
According to official data,in July 2025, 09.06 billion requests were made for seeking access to the e-ticketing system and out of them, 05.03 billion requests were bots and access to them was denied by the railway for booking e-tickets.
In August 2025, out of a total of 11.04 billion requests, the railway detected 05.07 billion requests from bots, while in September, the railway received 19.04 billion requests for access to the e-ticketing system, but out of them, 12.5 billion were bots.
The minister also shared data that showed the railway received 24.04 billion requests, and out of those requests, 17 billion requests were bots, while in November 2025, the railway received 20.07 billion requests, out of which 14.03 billion were bots.
In December 2025, nearly 14.28 billion requests for access to the e-ticketing system were received of which 07.25 billion were bots.
According to a railway official, the railway acted through several measures, blocking 12,819 suspicious email domains and lodging 376 complaints on the National Cyber Portal pertaining to 3.99 lakh suspicious bookings done in 2025.
Through continuous rigorous revalidation and verification of user accounts, the railway also deactivated over 3.03 crore suspicious user IDs in 2025.
The Minister said, “The use of multiple protective layers, such as network firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, application delivery controls and web application firewall to safeguard the system against cyber threats are being used by the railway”.
As a part to ensure tickets to genuine users, the railway has also made Aadhaar authentication mandatory to book Tatkal tickets, as it helps to prevent misuse and improve fairness in Tatkal bookings.
Vaishnaw further said, “It helps in preventing the creation and operation of fake or unauthorised agent-controlled multiple user accounts by imposing a uniqueness constraint. This measure also acts as an effective safeguard against account multiplication and automated misuse, thereby ensuring fair allocation of Tatkal tickets”.