Railways to roll out beta version of revamped IRCTC website soon
New Delhi, July 10 (TNT): Indian Railways will soon launch the beta version of the revamped IRCTC website, featuring a simplified interface, faster ticket booking and improved user experience, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Friday.
Officials of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) and the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) interacted with students of the Malaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT), Jaipur, and sought their feedback on the beta version before its launch.
The Union Minister said the revamped website was developed after students of MNIT highlighted shortcomings in the existing IRCTC portal a few weeks ago.
According to Vaishnaw, the new portal is currently being integrated with the Passenger Reservation System (PRS) of Indian Railways, which is also undergoing a major overhaul. The fully functional upgraded IRCTC platform is expected to be available in the next few months after the new reservation engine is commissioned.
The beta version incorporates four major improvements, including the removal of unnecessary captchas, pop-ups and flashing graphics, display of seat availability across all travel classes, a reduction in the number of booking steps for faster checkout, and the facility to save passenger details for repeat bookings.
The Union Minister said Indian Railways was simultaneously modernising its four-decade-old Passenger Reservation System while ensuring uninterrupted services during the transition.
Vaishnaw also said the RailOne application has crossed 40 million downloads, emerging as the largest railway ticket booking app in the country by providing multiple railway services on a single platform.
On Tatkal ticket booking, he said several measures had been implemented to curb the use of automated bots, resulting in some improvement. However, he noted that the fight against misuse was an ongoing process and that further efforts would continue.
He thanked the MNIT students for their suggestions, stating that their feedback had played a key role in improving the user experience of the revamped IRCTC portal.
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