The tedious experiences of booking train tickets through the IRCTC website may have become a thing of the past, as the Indian Railways on Wednesday launched its next-generation e-ticketing system that features an enhanced booking capacity of 7,200 tickets per minute, and is said to be both faster and easier to use.

"It was a rail budget commitment which was fulfilled today," Railway Minister Sadanand Gowda said after launching the next generation e-ticketing system in New Delhi.

The new system developed by Centre for Railway information Systems (CRIS) with an estimated cost of Rs. 180 crore would allow booking of 7,200 tickets per minute against 2,000 tickets per minute possible with the old system.

Also, with the launch of the system, 120,000 concurrent users can book e-tickets simultaneously now, against the earlier capacity of 40,000 concurrent users at a time.

(Also see: Beyond IRCTC: Apps and Sites That Make Train Travel Better)



Expressing his happiness on the successful implementation of the faster e-ticketing system which was part of the Rail Budget proposal, Gowda said "budget was presented two months and five days ago in Parliament, and today we are launching [the upgraded service]."

He hoped with this pace all budget proposals would be implemented before the next budget though there are only six months left for the next year budget.

Besides e-ticketing, Gowda launched a series of IT-enabled initiatives for rail users including train enquiry mobile application and Go-India smart card.

Online system like e-Demand and e-Diversion for freight service was also launched by Gowda to enable the booking of wagons and making of payments without going to counters.

"Railways is part and parcel of development. It is in the mind of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. PM said all operational part of railways should be covered through online system," the Railway minister said.

Emphasising state-of-the-art solution in rail sector to bring about operational efficiency, Gowda said "I have envisaged hospital management information system for the railway staff."

He also suggested education to children of railway staff through optic fibre cable network.

Gowda also announced cash awards of Rs. 5 lakh and Rs. 2.5 lakh for CRIS and IRCTC respectively for their commendable work.