On Tuesday, a technical glitch in the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) ticketing system resulted in widespread inconvenience for thousands of commuters. The disruption affected the ticket booking process on the IRCTC website and the IRCTC Rail Connect app, leading to failed transactions and payment deductions without successful bookings. The issue persisted for over 10 hours, severely impacting the functioning of the ticket booking website.
During the outage, frustrated users took to Twitter to voice their grievances, as the system failure left them unable to book their desired train tickets online. On average daily more than two-thirds of tickets are booked online, but Tuesday saw a significant disruption in this process.
Network issue problem local commuters also faced inconvenience.
Senior divisional commercial manager of Mumbai Central division of Western Railways acknowledged the inconvenience caused and attributed it to a payment server issue, affecting the functioning of Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs).
"Inconvenience caused is regretted. ATVMs are not functioning due to payment server issue. @IRCTCofficial" (sic) tweeted Senior divisional commercial manager from the Mumbai Central division of Western Railways.
IRCTC acknowledges issue
The IRCTC, a public sector undertaking under the Railways Ministry, acknowledged the problem in a tweet early in the day and assured users that their technical team was working to resolve the issue. The authorities also suggested using alternative platforms like Amazon and Makemytrip for ticket bookings.
The glitch not only affected the IRCTC website and app but also impacted the functioning of the UTS app and Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs), causing additional inconvenience for passengers.
According to a spokesperson from the Central Railways (CR), the technical issue persisted from 2.56 am to 1.28 pm on Tuesday. Users attempting to book tickets during this period experienced errors, with money being deducted from their accounts but tickets failing to be confirmed.
Services restored
Thankfully, by 1.28 pm, the IRCTC website was reported to be functioning normally, and the ticketing services were restored. The IRCTC tweeted an update confirming the resolution of the booking issue.
The inconvenience caused to passengers was deeply regretted by the IRCTC and railway authorities, who promptly advised officials to make alternate arrangements to minimize further disruptions.
Additionally, network problems affected some Point of Sale (POS) machines, further complicating ticket purchases for local commuters of the Central Railways Mumbai division
