Citizen Reporting and Ministry Action - A Case Study
Dear Friends:
Some of you have may have seen the Indian Express article shared by Ms. Sahni stating 4,000 confirmed berths were being hoarded by touts every day.
We are pleased to share that this investigation was initiated based on the reporting of Akash Jain in this circle who posted the attached ticket generated at 8 am with 142 waiting list.
Upon investigation, it was found that 142 waiting list was arrived at in 27 seconds and we had shared the excel with you.
However, the matter was further investigated by Railways Officials and it was found that it was impossible to fill up all the details for any one in 2 seconds.
The probe found that the touts, who sell tickets at a higher price to passengers in need, were exploiting a “facility” in the passenger reservation software. The facility allows someone who has already purchased a ticket to alter journey details and book another train within seconds at the last moment.
Touts would buy tickets for relatively less popular trains a day earlier, and then swap them for tickets on popular trains — Rajdhanis, Durontos and other long-distance trains — between 8 am and 8.01 am. This would take seconds since their booking details were already fed into the system.
Touts would buy any ticket a day in advance and the next day, they would get ticket details changed. The booking clerk merely had to generate another PNR with the passenger details already fed into the system a day earlier.
The system changes have been made. Now, instead of 4,000 journey/train changes in the first minute, only a few such changes are made in the course of the day.
Also, further investigation is being carried out to find out any booking clerks/insiders involved in the racket and appropriate action will be taken.
We are grateful to Mr. Akash Jain for his reporting and to all of you in this circle who are playing a role in Making Railways Better!
Ministry of Railways more
Some of you have may have seen the Indian Express article shared by Ms. Sahni stating 4,000 confirmed berths were being hoarded by touts every day.
We are pleased to share that this investigation was initiated based on the reporting of Akash Jain in this circle who posted the attached ticket generated at 8 am with 142 waiting list.
Upon investigation, it was found that 142 waiting list was arrived at in 27 seconds and we had shared the excel with you.
However, the matter was further investigated by Railways Officials and it was found that it was impossible to fill up all the details for any one in 2 seconds.
The probe found that the touts, who sell tickets at a higher price to passengers in need, were exploiting a “facility” in the passenger reservation software. The facility allows someone who has already purchased a ticket to alter journey details and book another train within seconds at the last moment.
Touts would buy tickets for relatively less popular trains a day earlier, and then swap them for tickets on popular trains — Rajdhanis, Durontos and other long-distance trains — between 8 am and 8.01 am. This would take seconds since their booking details were already fed into the system.
Touts would buy any ticket a day in advance and the next day, they would get ticket details changed. The booking clerk merely had to generate another PNR with the passenger details already fed into the system a day earlier.
The system changes have been made. Now, instead of 4,000 journey/train changes in the first minute, only a few such changes are made in the course of the day.
Also, further investigation is being carried out to find out any booking clerks/insiders involved in the racket and appropriate action will be taken.
We are grateful to Mr. Akash Jain for his reporting and to all of you in this circle who are playing a role in Making Railways Better!
Ministry of Railways more
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Problem is that only few railway persons are trying to make reservation system better along with us but many are engaging in making it agents friendly. So only hard steps against culprits can only make it streamlined otherwise it will go bad to worst. more
Nov 13
As per an excel sheet provided by Railways earlier, it was seen that there is no transparent system of booking. First few tickets are confirmed, then WL & RAC. Again after some S. N. suddenly Confirmed tickets become available, then RAC & WL This cycle keeps on repeating for entire duration booking is open (which was 60 days earlier & now 120 days). As per a transparent system first all confirmed tickets should be sold & then RAC and at last WL. Once RAC begins, no confirmed ticket should be available & after WL had started confirmed or RAC tickets should not be sold. RAC may be upgraded to confirmed & WL to RAC/Confirmed due to cancellations. more
May 09
I had written my comments earlier also regarding the reservation anomalies through IRCTC website. Today I tried booking a ticket in 2AC from Bareilly to New Delhi at 8:30 AM for 01-June-2015 in 12391 Shramjeevi express. Today being the first day of the booking for the 60/120 days advance booking period I expected no problems but to my surprise the IRCTC portal showed no confirmed berths only wait listed. I think the quota system is a farce to accommodate the VIP's, touts, travel agents and Pseudo VIP's. Genuine travelers who are ready to book 60 days in advance and shell out money are shown the door whereas back door entry is facilitated to all the undeserving through the quota system. I think quota needs to be drastically reduced and the berths should be made available on first come first served basis irrespective of the boarding station or the distance traveled. as per Railways, the cancellation and change of journey dates will not be allowed from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM but no matter what they do still the reservation in popular trains is unavailable from day 1 of advance booking period. A serious revamp is needed. more
Apr 01
We have to admit that IRCTC for Indian Railways is such a huge facility and even in a small organization, when they introduced SAP etc, by the time implementation is over, people feel it takes hell a lot of time and one has to enhance the capacity to increase the speed. When the number of users go up, simultaneously IRCTC have to keep doubling their capacity every year so that the genuine will get his due share without any hassles. While I have all the appreciation for the IRCTC net booking facility and its efficiency, please plug all the loopholes to ensure that the system is quite user friendly and beneficial to the users more
Apr 01
All these malpractices are because of lack of proper System audit of IRCTC portal .First of all let irctc declare whether they had audited systematic System audit or not on irctc web site. Recent finding shows that it might have done a audit for name sake! So first step from irctc team must be a system audit by a professional team. All such criminal flaws will be exposed within a month time. No need to discuss much of finding loopholes by public, as it will take years to find such faults. Unauthorised login, un authorized approvals, alert of system changes, authentication accessing site with alternate url etc can be minimised by System audting more
Apr 01
