Indian Railways is planning to directly undertake e-ticketing operations from its subsidiary Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), after recently taking over the catering services in trains. This decision has been taken due to mismanagement of e-ticketing by IRCTC as shown by continuous complaints of touts buying tickets in fictitious names, leading to unavailability of seats to legitimate customers.
The Indian Railways is looking at handing over the task of e-ticketing to Centre for Railways Information Systems (CRIS), the subsidiary that had developed the software for internet reservation of train tickets. In the first move towards the transfer, the Railway Board has asked CRIS to plan for expansion in the time period during which e-tickets can be bought. As of now, e-ticketing can be done for a limited period of the day. �We want to facilitate e-ticketing round the clock. We have planned to extend this facility from 12:01 am till 11:30 pm and to keep half an hour for maintenance work,� said a senior official of Rail Bhawan. CRIS has been asked to prepare a strategy to implement this considering the �limited resources�.
The Railways noticed close to 1,000 cases of touts purchasing tickets in fictitious names and selling them at a premium during January-March this year. Earlier this month, Indian Railways barred agents from accessing e-booking portal to buy Tatkal or other advance tickets in the first hour of the day, i.e. from 8 am to 9 am. In addition to this, the Railway Board also decided to carry out special checks at all major reservation offices between 7:30 am to 9 am to prevent touts from buying seats in the first hour of the opening day of the advance reservation period. The Indian Railways recently also issued a new policy reducing IRCTC�s catering job to food plazas and food courts at stations. The measure was triggered by complaints against food quality and some companies cornering most of the contracts from IRCTC. IRCTC will reduce to a tourism service provider once the e-ticketing job is also taken away from it.