In a crackdown against touts and booking agents who misuse the railway ticketing infrastructure, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has deactivated 3.04 crore user IDs. Apart from this, the railway PSU has suspended 6.33 crore IDs citing suspicious activity. These account holders cannot book tickets without verifying their authenticity. Agents misuse the system by making bulk bookings after creating fake user IDs and later sell the tickets at inflated rates to desperate passengers.
Since last October, the IRCTC has been cracking down on the misuse of the railway ticketing platform by touts. IRCTC said that it has blocked 16,041 suspicious email domains and registered 592 complaints on the Cyber Crime Portal covering 4.21 lakh suspicious PNR (passenger name record) numbers.
At present, only 8.43% to 14.14% of the day’s bookings are completed during the first hour from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., and over 85% of bookings are completed later in the day.
The first 15 minutes from 8 a.m. record the highest booking volume, reflecting peak concurrent demand.
“All categories of authorized ticketing agents are prohibited from booking Advanced Reservation Period (ARP) tickets during the first 10 minutes of the booking window, i.e., 8 a.m. to 8.10 a.m.,” the company stated. “Only Aadhaar-authenticated users are permitted to book tickets during the opening ARP window from October 12, 2025.”
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