business

Updated: Feb 18, 2020 22:42 IST

Passengers can now easily avail Tatkal tickets as Railway Protection Force (RPF) took measures to weed out illegal software that would block genuine passengers from booking tickets through IRCTC’s website, a top official told PTI on Tuesday.

The official further added that 60 agents who were involved in using illegal software like ‘ANMS’, ‘MAC’ and ‘Jaguar’ which would block the ticketing process have been arrested.

Railway Protection Force (RPF) Director General Arun Kumar said that this cleansing operation would make Tatkal tickets available for passengers for hours.

Tatkal ticket booking starts at 10 AM and lasts till 11 AM for AC class tickets and 11 AM to 12 PM for non-AC class tickets.

Before the cleansing process, Tatkal tickets which are capable of being reserved in advance would be available only for a minute or two.

According to officials, illegal software like ‘ANMS’, ‘MAC’ and ‘Jaguar’ would bypass the IRCTC’s login captcha, booking captcha and bank OTP to generate tickets.

A genuine IRCTC user who has a registered account on the portal has to go through all of these processes to book a ticket.

Officials further explained that agents using these software booked the tickets in just around 1.48 minutes whereas a normal registered user would take around 2.55 minutes.

These agents had made it virtually impossible for genuine users to book tickets through IRCTC’s website.

The results of this operation are already reflecting on IRCTC’s website.

According to PTI, on October 26, 2019, Tatkal tickets which were available for two minutes for the Magadh Express were available for over 10 hours on February 10, since the bookings opened on February 9, 2020 on the train.

On the Sampoorna Kranti Express, Tatkal tickets were available for a little over four minutes on November 16, 2019, while on February 8, 2020, they were available for 18 minutes.

Ticket booking for the Swatantrata Senani Express also saw Tatkal booking last until 18 minutes on February 8, 2020 compared to that of two minutes on November 16, 2019.

These illegal software, which used to generate business of Rs 50 crore-100 crore annually, have now been blocked by the RPF.

RPF DG Arun Kumar while addressing a press briefing said, “As of today, I can say that not one ticket is being booked through illegal software. We have plugged all the issues that we had with the IRCTC website and also nabbed most of those who were top operators of the software.”

“This position has been taken from different zones and we have seen that the Tatkal tickets are available for longer. We are still monitoring other softwares which can be used to book tickets and will move on them as and when they try to book tickets illegally,” said Kumar.