ICRTC Website Crashes, Tickets Sold Out ..Reservations Made for 82,000 Passengers, Over Rs 16 Crore Collected

THE QUINT, 12/05/2020: As Railways resumed partial services under lockdown 3.0, the booking of tickets – which commenced on 11 May as announced by the Rail Ministry – faced disruption as the website crashed for two hours.

IRCTC Website Crashes for 2 Hours

The booking of tickets was pushed to 6:00 pm from 4:00 pm as the website of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) crashed, NDTV reported.

"Data pertaining to special trains is being fed in the IRCTC website. Train ticket bookings will be available in a short while. Please wait. Inconvenience is regretted," the Ministry of Railway had tweeted.

Reservations Made for 82,000 Passengers, Over Rs 16 Crore Collected

Around 45,500 PNRs were generated and reservations were made for over 82,000 passengers for special trains, Railways officials said according to PTI and ANI.

The total collection is reportedly over Rs 16 crore.

Delhi Howrah Tickets Fully Booked in 10 Minutes

Trains on certain routes were more sought after than others, like the ones plying between Delhi and Howrah.

Despite the delay in booking, all AC-1 and AC-3 tickets for the Howrah-New Delhi train were sold out within the first 10 minutes, PTI reported. The train is scheduled to leave the Howrah Railway station on 12 May at 5:05 pm.

Within 3 Hours, Tickets for Mumbai Central-New Delhi Sold Out

All tickets on the New Delhi-Mumbai Central route have been booked upto 18 May.

The train is set to depart from Mumbai Central railway station at 5.30 pm on 12 May and will be operating every day, Hindustan Times reported.

The train will have 20 coaches and will halt at Surat, Vadodara, Ratlam and Kota railway stations on the way.

Earlier, the government announced special trains will run from the New Delhi Station to Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.

The Ministry of Railways restarted its passenger train operations from Tuesday, 12 May, with 30 return journeys to begin with. A detailed schedule was released by Rail Ministry on Monday for these “special trains”, with some running daily, and others triweekly, biweekly or weekly.

The bookings had opened at 4 pm on 11 May. However, the website was down for about two hours from 4 pm; Railways said the delay was due to the fact that ‘information pertaining to the special trains’ was being uploaded.

Users said a disclaimer pertaining to COVID-19 pops up on the site when you open it. The disclaimer reads, “During COVID-19, you are responsible for your own health.”

“Mandatory to wear face cover, undergo screening at departure; only asymptomatic passengers will be allowed on trains,” Railways further added, reported news agency PTI.

These special trains will run from the New Delhi Station to Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.

All the trains will have air-conditioned coaches, and the fares will be similar to that of Rajdhani trains. Tatkal bookings and waitlists will not be available.

The trains from Delhi to Mumbai, Patna, Kolkata, Dibrugarh, Jammu Tawi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, and Bhubaneswar, will be running daily. The services to Agartala and Secunderabad will run once a week, to Chennai, Madgaon, Ranchi, and Bilaspur twice a week, and to Thiruvananthapuram thrice a week. Passenger trains had been suspended when the nationwide coronavirus lockdown was imposed on 25 March.

The Railways has been running 366 ‘shramik’ trains since 1 May, ferrying four lakh migrants back to their respective home states.

(With inputs from PTI and ANI)