India's railway ticketing website will undergo a major overhaul to support booking of three times the number of tickets per minute and 6 times more number of simultaneous users. Proposals to provide free wi-fi on "several" trains is also being examined.

By the end of this calendar year, India’s railway ticketing website will undergo a major overhaul to support booking of three times more number of tickets per minute and 6 times more number of simultaneous users, the Minister of Railways said on Tuesday. Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal also said that proposals to provide free wi-fi on “several” trains is also being examined.

During his budget speech, Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said

I have heard from different sources that the IRCTC website causes inordinate delay..by the end of this calender year, we will put in place a next generation e-ticketing system by significantly improving ease of use, response time, and capacity.It will be able to support 7200 tickets per minute as against 2000 now. It will support 1.2 lakh users at any point of time as against 20,000 now..the system will make use of advanced fraud management and security control.

Bansal also said that proposals to provide free wi-fi in several trains as well as systems through which passengers can provide real time feedback to the railway authorities on the cleanliness and hygiene on trains are being examined.

The railways will also use the Aadhaar scheme to render more user friendly services such as booking tickets, validation of passengers with GPS enabled hand held devices, the Bansal said.

“I’ve had some discussions on the potentioal application of Aadhaar with Nandan Nilekani,” he said.

The minister also announced the extension of Internet ticket booking from 12.30 am to 11.30 am. A project to provide real time sms alerts for passengers on reservation status is also being implemented, he said. Nominated websites will provide real time information as well.

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