a train on a steel track: IRCTC e-ticket booking facility to be closed for 5 hours tomorrow


© India Today Group
IRCTC e-ticket booking facility to be closed for 5 hours tomorrow

Online train ticket booking services on the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) portal will be closed on the night of September 29 for around 5 hours from 11:45 pm to 04:30 am.

According to the Chief Commercial Manager of Eastern Railways, ticket booking services, including online ticket facility will not be available for most parts of the country including Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal.

The e-ticket facility shall be closed due to technical glitches in the Kolkata Passenger Reservation System (PRS) data. During this 5 hour stretch, passengers won’t be able to book or cancel tickets.  

Online ticket bookings and cancellations have seen a notable rise since the launch of special trains. The five-hour hiatus in online ticket bookings will significantly impact the eastern and north eastern operations of railways since the passengers won’t be able to book tickets from Dhanbad, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Asansol, Bokaro, Kolkata and Patna.

Online services will be closed for Eastern Central Railway, South Eastern Railway, Eastern Railway, East Coast Railway, and South East Central Railway. States where passengers will face problems on September 29 are Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal.

The Railways rolled out 40 special clone or duplicate trains on September 21 in addition to the 310 special trains operating in full swing. These clone trains, primarily 3 AC trains, will run two-three hours before departure of the corresponding parent train.