Indian Railways boosts ticketing with faster charting | Fusion - WeRIndia

Indian Railways is undertaking a major overhaul of its ticketing and reservation systems to make train travel more efficient, transparent, and passenger-friendly.

The Ministry of Railways has announced a series of reforms aimed at reducing uncertainty for travellers and improving overall service delivery.

One key change involves the reservation chart preparation process. Currently, charts are prepared four hours before a train’s departure.

This creates stress for passengers with waitlisted tickets, especially those travelling from remote or suburban areas. To address this, Indian Railways will now prepare the reservation chart eight hours before departure.

For trains scheduled to leave before 2 PM, the chart will be generated by 9 PM the previous evening.

This move will give passengers early clarity on their booking status, allowing them to make alternative travel arrangements if needed. The implementation will be phased to ensure a smooth transition.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who recently reviewed these changes, emphasised the importance of a smart, accessible, and convenient ticketing system.

In line with this vision, the Passenger Reservation System (PRS) is also undergoing a significant upgrade.

The new PRS will drastically improve the system’s capacity. It will be able to handle more than 1.5 lakh ticket bookings per minute, up from the current 32,000 per minute.

Enquiry capacity will also increase tenfold, from 4 lakh to over 40 lakh queries per minute.

The upgraded platform will be agile, scalable, multilingual, and more responsive to user needs.

New features include a user-friendly interface, real-time seat preference selection, a fare calendar, and support for Divyangjan, students, and patients.

To improve transparency and security, the system will introduce stricter authentication for Tatkal bookings. From 1st July 2025, only verified users can book Tatkal tickets on IRCTC.

By the end of July, OTP-based authentication using Aadhaar or government IDs linked to DigiLocker will be mandatory.

These steps reflect Indian Railways’ commitment to digital transformation.

With better planning tools, faster service, and enhanced security, the new system promises a much smoother experience for millions of daily passengers.

Image by Ngachan from Pixahive (Free for commercial use / CC0 Public Domain)

Image Published on September 13, 2020

Image Reference: https://pixahive.com/photo/indian-railway/