New rail portal not available to travel agents

Daisy

 Patna : Railway  portal www.indianrail.gov.in is successfully coping with huge pressure of online ticket booking system at the country level. The portal, which was earlier launched  on a trial basis,  has become regular now evoking  good response from the people and has  taken pressure off  from Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), the sole agency so far  for booking online  e-tickets.

 A Railway Board official said this facility is not available to travel agents . It is  exclusively for individual users  who can asily book their e-tickets in advance through this railway site.  The individual users are required to register themselves  for using the railway site , he said. Besides e-ticket booking , railways has  introduced facilities like booking retiring room, taxi and  cloak room  through this site in advance. Railways is eager to provide all kinds of facilities to passengers online  before they start their journey ,  he added.    

The official said the railways launched this portal  following frequent complaints about non-availability of the site during peak time . The new portal  has the provision for  internet reservation which is smooth for the common people, he said adding  the alleged malpractice and irregularities in issuing e-tickets to people on the IRCTC portal has been a major concern for railways in  maintaining transparency in e-ticket booking. According to sources , it has been noticed  that a large number of  people have been booking their journey tickets through IRCTC portal daily across the country. The new site, which has received an overwhelming response from computer savvy people, has been able to facilitate people to access the IRCTC site through the new portal also, sources said.

About  40 % of rail ticket bookings are  made by the IRCTC. Railways is keen to  provide multiple choice to passengers to  book  their journey tickets  in advance or just before their journey. The Centre  for Railway Information System ( CRIS ) has been  providing  assistance to railways in making the  online ticket booking system easy and foolproof through its own portal , sources  said. To redress passenger grievances fast, railways has  launched  a separate cell at the Board level to register complaints about poor quality of meals or any other complaints related to passengers’ journey. Senior railway officials are looking into  passengers’ grievances  on priority basis, sources said .