IRCTC Accounts Under Scanner: Over 3 Crore IDs Deactivated as Railways Tighten Ticket Booking Rules

Indian Railways has taken a step further in the battle against ticket booking fraud by introducing new measures for Tatkal reservations. The introduction of Aadhaar-based OTP verification as a mandatory condition for Tatkal ticket reservation on 322 trains all over India, and its eventual implementation on all trains in phases, is a major breakthrough in the fight against fraud.

Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav answering a question in Parliament stated that this step is intended to make the booking process more transparent and fair. He also announced that the verification and re-verification of all IRCTC customer accounts are now complete and that 3.02 crore suspicious or duplicate account IDs have been deactivated as a result of this process.

Further making the most of their existing technologies Indian Railways has already invested in Akamai anti-bot technology to identify and eliminate the use of scripts that are deployed by the agents and touts to buy tickets from the system. Some of the complaints regarding questionable PNRs have been filed on the National Cyber Crime Portal as well. These actions have proven effective in improving Tatkal bookings greatly, as the confirmation rates for tickets reached up to 95% for 96 trains, thus giving the benefit to the real passengers.

What is Aadhaar-based OTP verification?

According to the latest arrangement, the booking of Tatkal tickets can be done only after the OTP authentication that is sent to the mobile number in the user's Aadhaar card is done. This measure guarantees that only authenticated users are allowed to make the bookings which drastically reduces the number of fake IRCTC accounts and bot-driven reservations that have been obstructing, the common passengers, from receiving their fair share.

With this overhauling program Indian Railways is hoping to provide a million daily commuters with a fun and transparent ticket booking experience.