Tatkal Booking New Timings at IRCTC

UPDATE (15 June 2015)

Railway Tatkal Booking Timings Changed

The Indian railways has decided to change the tatkal booking timings from 15 june 2015 to enable hassle free reservation at the windows as well as online. So the non-AC tatkal tickets can be booked from 11:00 am instead of 10:00 am as it was before. However the tatkal AC tickets will be booked as before i.e. 10:00 am.
The realways has also decided to bar all agent booking for half an hour at every booking opening time. So for general booking 8:00 to 8:30 am is a no agent time zone. The agents will also not be able to book tatkal AC tickets between 10:00 am to 10:30 am and beween 11:00 am to 11:30 am for non-AC tatkal tickets.
There is some good news for tatkal ticket refund seekers. Railways is considering to refund a certain percentage of ticket cost to the passenger if s/he  decides to cancel a confirmed tatkal ticket with a stipulated time. The details are yet to be finalized, but surely it is a good initiative.

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In a bid to make Tatkal booking more convenient for the masses, reservation of Tatkal tickets will start from 10 am instead of 8 am, from July 10, and no authorised agents will be allowed to book those during the first two hours, said K. H. Muniyappa, minister of state for Railways.

This initiative also targets to curb black marketing and mass purchase of railway tickets by touts.

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), the public sector undertaking of the Ministry of Railways, has taken additional measures to improve the online ticketing system for customers. These include augmenting e-ticketing software licences and technical evaluation of mobile-based technology, among others.

“With the steep hike in airfares, the demand-supply gap for railway tickets has substantially increased, and we are trying our best to reduce it,” said Muniyappa.

E-ticket handling capacity of the IRCTC website is also being increased. As of now, the site can handle 3.5 lakh bookings a day, which will be increased to around 5 lakh bookings per day by November this year and to 8 lakh bookings a day, as per the long-term plan. Both IRCTC and Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) are working jointly in this direction.

(Read more at: http://techcircle.vccircle.com/500/%E2%80%98tatkal%E2%80%99-booking-to-start-at-10-am-from-july-10-daily-e-ticketing-capacity-raised-to-5-lakh/)