NEW DELHI: In a significant move, the Railways has decided to prioritise Tatkal ticket bookings for account holders who have linked their accounts with Aadhaar cards during the first 10 minutes of Tatkal ticket sale time slots. Indian Railways will soon begin using e-Aadhaar authentication for booking Tatkal tickets. This will help genuine users get confirmed tickets, said Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw.
Announcing this on Wednesday, the Railways stated: “Account holders who link their accounts with Aadhaar will get priority booking during the first 10 minutes of Tatkal ticket sales. Even authorised IRCTC agents are not allowed to book tickets within the first 10 minutes of the Tatkal window opening.”
The Railways noted that IRCTC has decided to conduct special verification for all accounts that are not authenticated with Aadhaar. “Accounts found to be suspicious will be closed,” it said.
According to official figures, around 2,25,000 passengers book Tatkal tickets daily through the online platform.
An analysis of Tatkal ticket booking patterns conducted between May 24 and June 2 revealed that, on average, only 5,615 out of 1,08,000 AC class tickets were booked in the first minute after the booking window opened. However, 22,827 tickets were booked in the second minute. In the AC class, an average of 67,159 tickets were booked online within the first 10 minutes of the window opening—representing 62.5% of all tickets booked online.
“The remaining 37.5% of tickets were booked between 10 minutes after opening until chart preparation, in which 3.01% of Tatkal tickets were booked more than 10 hours after the window opened,” the Railways claimed.
In the non-AC category, from May 24 to June 2, an average of 1,18,567 tickets were booked online daily. Of these, 4,724 tickets—about 4%—were booked within the first minute, while 20,786 tickets—about 17.5%—were booked in the second minute. Approximately 66.4% of tickets were sold within the first 10 minutes after the window opened. Additionally, around 84.02% of tickets were sold within the first hour of the window opening, with the remaining tickets sold over the next 10 hours.
“This clearly shows that Tatkal tickets are made available to passengers through the online system, and around 12% of Tatkal tickets are still booked 8 to 10 hours after the window opens,” the Railways said, adding that it has launched a campaign against the use of automated tools for online ticket booking, employing AI to support this effort.