Railways launch new e-ticketing system

Buying a railway ticket online will be much easier as Indian Railways launched the modern e-ticketing system capable of generating about 7,200 tickets per minute compared to the earlier capacity of 2,000 tickets per minute.

Railways has made an investment of about Rs 100 crore in this IT initiative. The technology has been developed by Center for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), an autonomous organization under Ministry of Railways. The new system will be able to handle about one lakh twenty thousand sessions and two lakh queries at the same time compared to the earlier capacity of forty thousand.

The IRCTC portal caters to about eight lakh passengers daily and fifty percent of the Railway bookings are made online.

Other initiatives include e-demand and e-division module of freight services, mobile application for train enquiry and a pilot project called 'Go India Smart' card which consumers can use to book tickets online, nominated passenger reservation counters and automated ticket vending machines. The pilot project will be implemented on the six stations between New Delhi - Howrah and New Delhi-Mumbai. The card can be issued by paying Rs. 70.

A new Rail Neer plant at Ambernath (Mumbai) of Indian Railways catering and Tourism organization was also inaugurated by the Minister.