Indian Railways has seen a lot of improvement over the years. The role of middle men/ brokers/ agents has reduced in booking accommodation in a train. IRCTC plays an important role in brining revolution to the ticketing system. Forget about long queues in a station for booking tickets. You can book tickets at the comfort of your home/ office. You can also cancel tickets sitting at home! What more? What you need is an Internet connection. Even a cell phone will do at some places. New features have been added to the ticketing system. You can book waitlisted tickets also! E-tickets, I-Tickets, tickets with Tatkal system, change of passenger etc are some improvements made by IRCTC recently. Now IRCTC has introduced special packages for various tourist destinations as well as religious destinations in India. So, go and book your ticket and enjoy destinations in India. East to west and north to south, India has great places to visit. Explore the hub and njoy the ride.

Here, a review has been presented on the ticket booking system by IRCTC with suggestions for improvement.

IRCTC enable you to buy E-tickets and I-tickets through IRCTC.

Booking of Tickets

I-Ticket: The ticket looks like the original ticket booked from a railway booking counter. It is delivered to your address through courier. You have to have two clear days to book I-ticket. You cannot cancel the I-ticket through Internet. You have to visit a counter to do this. The money after cancellation shall be refunded to your bank account (credit card/ debit card/ netbanking)

E-Ticket: The ticket is a print out on a plain paper after booking it on net. You can book a ticket till time of chart preparation for that train. For booking E-ticket the master passenger (can be anybody) needs a Photo identity card whose number you have to mention while booking and carry the same during travel.

At the comfort of your seat, you can

Cancel the ticket fully

Cancel the ticket partially

In case the ticket of the master passenger is cancelled, on of the other passengers can be made master passenger. He / she shall have to carry the identity card during travel.

Cancellation of Ticket

The I-tickets shall be cancelled at the counters only.

The E-tickets can be cancelled over Internet. However, cancellation cannot be done in the Internet after chart preparation. The time of chart preparation is usually 4 hours before departure of the train from your source station.

Cancellation of E-Tickets after Chart Preparation

In case, you to cancel the ticket after chart preparation, you have to send e-mail to etickets@irctc.co.in mentioning PNR no of the ticket for cancellation. Money refund will take more than 90 days.

Email is sent to you mail id after money is refunded after cancellation. Presently, the PNR no. is not referred in the message after refund of money (after chart preparation). One usually forgets that he/ she has cancelled an e-ticket. Hence, one need to keep a track of all e-tickets cancelled after chart preparation.

Suggestions:

1) Refund of cancellation money may be linked / referred with PNR no. for easy tracking

The available berths may be shown in the site to choose from.

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This hub is being edited today i.e on 11-Nov-08.

1) Now you can cancel a ticket online after expiry of travel time if you have not travelled in the train. In the left hand menu, you can file TDR (Ticket deposit receipt), you can have a track of the cancellation process.

2) Now, while booking tickets you need not have an I card. Any one of the passengers travelling by that ticket ned to have an photo Identity proof while travelling.

Okay, now enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!