Irctc down: Why there is an outage at Indian railways ticket booking site

The online ticketing platform of Indian Railways, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), is experiencing a massive outage on Thursday, leaving passengers unable to access its website and mobile app.

IRCTC, the digital arm of the Indian Railways responsible for e-ticketing, confirmed that the outage was due to maintenance activities.

“Due to maintenance activity, e-ticketing service will not be available. Please try later,” it said in a statement.

This marks the second time in December that the IRCTC portal has faced a disruption, raising concerns among regular users. In a separate advisory, the company suggested that passengers looking to cancel their tickets could do so by either calling customer care or emailing their ticket details for a Ticket Deposit Receipt (TDR). The contact details provided by IRCTC for cancellation assistance are:

Customer Care Numbers: 14646, 08044647999, 08035734999

Email: etickets@irctc.co.in

The timing of the technical glitch could not have been worse, as many passengers rely on the platform for booking or managing their train tickets during the busy holiday season.

IRCTC stock declines

The IRCTC’s temporary service interruption also had an impact on its stock performance. The stock has fallen nearly 1% in today’s trading session. Over the past week, the stock has fallen by almost 4%, and on a year-to-date basis, it has delivered a negative return of over 10% for investors in 2024 so far.

New ticketing rules

The outage occurred just weeks after Indian Railways made significant changes to its ticket booking policies. Starting November 1, the Advance Reservation Period (ARP) for train bookings was reduced from 120 days to 60 days, limiting the window for passengers to book their tickets. This shift, intended to curb over-bookings and cancellations, has been met with mixed reactions.

The Indian Railways’ rationale behind the change includes better tracking of actual travel demand and more accurate planning for special trains during peak travel periods. The move aims to discourage ‘No-Show’ passengers, who reserve tickets but fail to cancel or show up for their journeys. According to Railway Board officials, around 21% of reservations made between 61 to 120 days in advance were cancelled, while 5% of passengers neither cancelled their bookings nor travelled.