Alert! Your bid to book Indian Railways train tickets through IRCTC may be stopped; here's why

Indian Railway passengers may soon face a situation where their attempt to book tickets through IRCTC portal is blocked! It has been revealed that travellers will soon have to use their Aadhaar card while booking their Railways tickets on the Indian Railway Catering Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website. According to media reports, you may have to submit your Aadhaar card number for your tickets to get confirmed.

This big move comes in the wake of a big development. In one of the recent cases, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) of the Central Railway arrested the mastermind behind one of the biggest Railways ticket rackets. The accused person used illegal software to reserve tickets on multiple outstation trains. The suggestion to link Aadhaar to the IRCTC user ID follows this particular incident.

At the present, it is not mandatory to link your Aadhaar card or PAN card with your IRCTC account. According to sources, once the recommendation is approved then it will become mandatory to link the IRCTC account with Aadhaar card.

According to a report by NewsX, some more suggestions have been sent to the Railway Board. Verification of the user ID through the mobile number, which will be verified by the mobile companies is one of those. Among the others, inspection of IP address of the customer should be carried out while booking tickets.

“Study on allowing booking of only two tickets on one IP address is also being done. This would also help in preventing touts who book multiple tickets at the same time. However, companies wishing to book more than two tickets for their employees will have to register with either IRCTC or CRIS,” a CRIS official told NewsX.

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In another move that is passenger friendly, IRCTC has ordered all its zones to ensure at least 10 point of sale (POS) machines are deployed on each train under their jurisdiction. This will ensure bills for the purchase of food items is provided to passengers on trains.

Now passengers can choose their meals from a pre-loaded menu and pay through credit or debit cards on 25 trains, Indian Railways had said earlier this month. This will keep ensure that the food are sold to the passengers at an exact price.