Representative image.
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To remove uncertainty for waitlisted passengers, the Railway Board has proposed preparing the reservation chart eight hours before the departure of a train, officials from the Indian Railways said.
“However, for trains departing before 1400 hours (2 p.m.), the chart will be prepared the previous day at 2100 hours (9 p.m.) itself,” a senior official from the Railway Ministry said. Currently, the chart is prepared four hours prior to the departure of a train.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has agreed with this proposal and directed the Board to start implementing this in phases so that there is no disruption. “This move will reduce uncertainties for passengers with waitlist tickets. The passengers will get the first update on waitlist status well in advance,” the official said.
“It will benefit passengers travelling from remote locations or suburbs of major cities for catching long distance trains. It will also provide more time to make alternative arrangements in case the ticket is not confirmed,” the official added.
Mr. Vaishnaw also reviewed the progress of reforms to revamp the Passenger Reservation System from the point of view of making the end-to-end travel experience passenger-centric. He emphasised that the ticketing system should be smart, transparent, accessible, and efficient. Officials said a modern Passenger Reservation System (PRS) is slated to be ready by December 2025.
Mr. Vaishnaw reviewed the upgrading process of the PRS, which is being executed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS).
1.5 lakh tickets a minute
The new upgraded PRS design is agile, flexible, and scalable to handle 10 times the current load. It will significantly enhance the ticket booking capacity. “The new PRS will allow over 1.5 lakh ticket bookings per minute. This will be an increase of roughly five times from 32,000 tickets per minute in the current PRS,” the official added.
The ticket enquiry capacity will rise from 4 lakh to over 40 lakh a minute. “The new PRS has a multilingual and user-friendly booking and enquiry interface. Users will be able to submit their choice of seat and see the fare calendar. It also has integrated facilities for Divyangjan, students, patients, etc.,” the official said.
Indian Railways has streamlined authentication for Tatkal bookings, which will allow only authenticated users to book Tatkal tickets on IRCTC website and mobile app beginning July 1. Further, OTP-based authentication will be done for Tatkal bookings from the end of July 2025. Mr. Vaishnaw instructed officials to broadbase the authentication mechanism for Tatkal bookings. “The authentication should be done using Aadhaar or any other verifiable Government ID available in the user’s DigiLocker account,” he said.
Published – June 29, 2025 09:56 pm IST
