Tatkal Ticket Booking: Indian Railways is set to implement new rules from July 1 to bring transparency to Tatkal ticket booking and to provide tickets to needy passengers on time in emergency cases. In a notification issued a few days ago, the Railways had said that passengers whose Aadhaar card is not linked to an IRCTC account will not be able to book Tatkal tickets from the IRCTC website or mobile app.
Now the Railways is planning to provide the facility of Tatkal ticket booking by verifying the IRCTC account with an Aadhaar card as well as some other identity cards. Currently, IRCTC Out of about 13 crore registered users of the Indian Railways, only a little more than 10% have linked their accounts with Aadhaar.
Will verification be done with other documents besides Aadhaar
A report in the Times of India quoted sources as saying that the Indian Railways is planning to include other documents present in DigiLocker such as PAN Card, Driving License, and Voter ID for user authentication. The ministry may issue a new notification in this regard on Monday. The proposal was discussed during a review meeting chaired by Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav on Friday. This facility can make the booking process more flexible for passengers.
Tatkal ticket booking and curbing black marketing
Currently, about 2.2 lakh passengers book Tatkal tickets every day through the IRCTC website and app. Railways has advised those using the IRCTC app and website to link their IRCTC account with Aadhaar before July 1, so that there is no problem while booking Tatkal tickets. From July 15, every Tatkal booking will also have to enter OTP linked to Aadhaar, so that the identity of the user can be ensured while booking.
All these measures have been taken to prevent the black marketing of tickets by fake agents and to provide tickets to needy passengers on time in case of emergency. Now Tatkal tickets can be booked only through an Aadhaar-linked IRCTC account or computerized PRS of Indian Railways. Bookings can be made only through the counters (Computerized PRS Counters) or Authorized Agents. This will ensure that the tickets reach only those who are genuinely needy.
What does RLWL mean
You often see some codes in railway tickets, one of which is RLWL. It means Remote Location Waiting List. This is the waiting list for those stations which are intermediate or important stations on the travel route. Passengers booking from these stations get RLWL status, and their confirmation is different from the waiting list (GNWL – General Waiting List) of the main route. Generally, the chances of confirmation of RLWL tickets are a little less, because the quota for these stations is limited.
