Access to e-ticketing is being hampered by a major outage caused by maintenance at Indian Railways' online ticketing infrastructure, IRCTC.
Irctc down: Passengers are unable to access Indian Railways' website and mobile app due to a significant outage that is occurring Thursday on the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), the company's online ticketing platform.The Indian Railways' digital division, IRCTC, which handles e-ticketing, acknowledged that maintenance operations were the cause of the outage.
"The e-ticketing service will not be accessible due to maintenance activities. In a statement, it said, "Please try later."
Regular customers are becoming concerned after the IRCTC portal had a disruption for the second time in December. In a different warning, the airline advised travelers who wanted to cancel their tickets to contact customer service or email their ticket information for a Ticket Deposit Receipt (TDR). IRCTC has given the following contact information for cancellation assistance:
Customer service numbers are 08044647999, 08035734999, and 14646.
etickets@irctc.co.in is the email.
Given that many travelers depend on the site to book or manage their train tickets during the hectic Christmas season, the timing of the technical issue could not have been worse.
IRCTC stock drops
The performance of the IRCTC's shares was also impacted by the brief service outage. During today's trading session, the stock has dropped by almost 1%. The stock has dropped about 4% in the last week, and thus far this year, it has given investors a negative return of more than 10% in 2024.
New guidelines for ticketing
Only a few weeks after Indian Railways made major adjustments to its ticketing procedures, the disruption happened. Beginning on November 1, travelers had a shorter window to purchase their tickets as the Advance Reservation Period (ARP) for train reservations was shortened from 120 days to 60 days. Reactions to this change, which aims to reduce overbookings and cancellations, have been conflicting.
Better surveillance of actual travel demand and more precise planning for special trains during peak travel periods are two of the Indian Railways' justifications for the change. The goal of the action is to deter "No-Show" travelers—those who purchase tickets but do not cancel or arrive for their trips. About 21% of reservations made between 61 and 120 days in advance were canceled, while 5% of passengers did not cancel or travel, according to Railway Board authorities.
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