Frustrated With Tatkal Ticket Booking? Railways To Roll Out New Feature To Provide Relief To Genuine Users

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday announced that Indian Railways will soon launch an e-Aadhaar authentication for booking Tatkal tickets. The government’s move is aimed at minimising frauds while ensuring confirmed tickets for genuine travellers.

“This will help genuine users get confirmed tickets during need,” The Railway Minister said about the initiative in a post on X.

Every morning at 10 a.m., millions of Indians rush to book limited Tatkal tickets, but they face problems such as server slowdowns and payment failures on the IRCTC app and website. These challenges often push travellers to rely on booking agents, who exploit the demand by charging excessively high prices for confirmed tickets.

Many people have raised this problem on social media, seeking a solution from the Indian Railways and the Railway Minister.

A case as recent as Tuesday arose after a user on X, identified as Raushan Pathak, raised concerns that all tatkal tickets were being booked within just one minute. He said that despite trying to book the ticket just minutes after 10:00 a.m., he first saw a “booking not yet started” message, then “ticket not available” appeared onscreen within a few minutes. Such issues are common and frequently reported by users, who often highlight system delays and the limited availability of Tatkal tickets.

The new e-Aadhaar system will help Railways ensure genuine passengers can quickly and efficiently secure confirmed tickets during urgent travel needs.

The move to introduce an Aadhaar-based booking system is being planned by the Indian Railways after the discovery of a massive abuse of its Tatkal booking system. Between January and May 2025, IRCTC detected 2.9 lakh suspicious PNRs generated within five minutes of booking windows opening. The incident has flagged the scale of manipulation behind disappearing Tatkal tickets, prompting officials to initiate a crackdown on those who are exploiting the system.

To combat this, officials deactivated 2.5 crore user IDs and flagged 20 lakh more, according to reports. Investigations revealed that bots, fake user IDs and booking agents were exploiting system loopholes. Many were using disposable email addresses to create multiple fake accounts, bypassing security checks. As a crackdown, Indian Railways has blocked 6,800 such domains and lodged 134 cybercrime complaints.