IRCTC Website, Mobile App Down for Hours Due to ‘Technical Reasons’; Restored

Commuters across the country were left upset when the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation’s website and mobile app crashed on Tuesday morning, leaving officials scrambling to fix the glitch.

Officials said the glitch was due to “technical reasons” which were resolved later, but not before causing chaos among passengers, many of whom complained that while money was deducted from their accounts, tickets were not booked.

In addition to passenger problems, the Unreserved Ticket System (UTS) used to purchase tickets through automatic ticket vending machines (ATVMs) also developed an issue that was not disclosed. Many people have had problems booking tickets since the morning. Some of them said that they also encountered issues while booking tickets through IRCTC’s ticketing partners.

“Due to technical reasons, ticket service is not available on the IRCTC website and app. The technical team of CRIS (Center for Railway Information Systems) is resolving the issue,” tweeted the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC).

It also advised travelers to book their tickets on platforms such as Amazon, MakeMyTrip and others. According to the officials, the IRCTC website experienced a technical problem from 2.56am to 1.28pm.

They said the site was operating normally from 1.28pm.

Some passengers claimed when they tried to book tickets through the IRCTC website and mobile app, money was deducted from their account, but their tickets were not booked.

“I had to book tickets today. When I tried first time, payment failed and ticket not booked. Tried five times but ticket not booked. Rs 10,000 spent on ticket ‘in process’ now. First I book sleep class which is not booked, then I try (3AC) which is not booked yet,” someone tweeted Shrib Khan.

Another person, Dhinesh Rajan, said in a tweet, “I tried to book a ticket using @makemytrip and the page crashed after paying and got closed. I couldn’t book a ticket for my flight and lost my money by trusting a third party website as instructed by IRCTCofficial.” However, the bug did not see a decrease in the number of bookings on the site. The IRCTC website, which sees average bookings in the range of 12 to 13 tickets per day online, saw 14,19,671 tickets booked between midnight and 4:30 p.m., though officials said Tuesday and 4:30 a.m.

They said this was primarily because the railways operated around 200 PRS (Passenger Reservation System) ticket counters across the various railways in the regions.

In Mumbai, the Director General and IRCTC spokesperson for the Western Region did not respond to media inquiries about the issues. In light of the technical issue of the IRCTC website and mobile app ticket booking, a Central Railway (CR) spokesperson said, CR has opened 12 additional windows for PRS at stations in the Mumbai section, including five at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj station and some other stations in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai.

A railway official said that bookings were made via the platforms of 28 registered B2C agents. In addition, bookings were also done through IRCTC Chatbot ‘Ask Disha’ and PRS, he said.

He added that IRCTC has also notified passengers with regular updates through its customer service center and official Twitter handle.

“Technical teams from IRCTC and CRIS worked together with key service providers to address the issues,” the official said. Several suburban commuters also claimed that the UTS used to purchase tickets from ATVMs had also developed a hurdle because they could not book tickets.

A senior CR official said that efforts are underway to resolve the issue in the UTS system.

The IRCTC website has the capacity to book 25,000 train tickets per minute. There are plans to ramp this up to facilitate booking of 2.5 lakh tickets per minute.

(This story was not edited by the News18 staff and was published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)