UPDATE: The booking for special passenger trains will start at 6 pm on the IRCTC website.
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website which was to start at 4 pm today (Monday) for the online booking for reservation in passenger trains have crashed.
People who tried to login to the website shared the screenshots on Twitter.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Railways said that data pertaining to special trains is being fed in the IRCTC website. "Train ticket bookings will be available in a short while. Please wait. Inconvenience is regretted," MoR tweeted.
In a tweet, IRCTC said, "Special trains are being uploaded in system. Booking will start soon."
Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah also took to Twitter and wrote, "I hear from friends looking to book railway tickets that the @IRCTCofficial website has crashed. What's the point of restricting ticket sales to a website that can't handle the traffic surge?"
Earlier on Sunday evening, Ministry of Railways said the passanger train operations will resume on May 12.
The Ministry said that initially with 15 pairs, these passenger trains will run as special trains from New Delhi Station and connecting Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneshwar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tavi.
The Ministry categorically stated that the ticket booking counters at the railway stations shall remain closed and no counter tickets (including platform tickets) shall be issued.
The Ministry had said that the booking for reservation in these trains will open from 4 pm on Monday and will only be available through the IRCTC website.
