JOIN USAmidst rising complaints about misuse of the railway's Tatkal scheme of booking tickets, a revised scheme with additional measures to check the lacunae will come into effect from today under which passengers can book Tatkal tickets from 10AM instead of 8AM.
The revised scheme comes in the backdrop of increased number of complaints from train passengers about the misuse of the scheme and involvement of touts in cornering bulk of tickets to sell them at a premium.
No authorised agents, including agents of IRCTC and others, will be allowed to book Tatkal tickets from 10 AM to 12 AM from counters as well as from Internet.
While some zones will be operating separate counters for Tatkal tickets, others will be issuing tickets from the same counters but will provide only Tatkal tickets through these counters between 10 AM and 10.30 AM.
The booking of Tatkal tickets under the revamped scheme will begin on July 10 and zonal railways have been instructed to make adequate arrangement at reservation counters accordingly, said a senior Railway Ministry official.
Under the new arrangement, the booking of Tatkal tickets will start at 10 AM on the previous day of journey from the train's originating station instead of 8 AM at present. Measures such as installation of CCTVs in major booking centres, barring booking clerks to carry mobile phones inside counters, display of helpline numbers for complaints, raids by the vigilance squads to prevent misuse of Tatkal facility have been taken, he said.
Earlier, advance reservation period of Tatkal scheme was reduced from two days, excluding the day of journey, to one day. Refunds are not granted on cancellation of confirmed Tatkal tickets except in case of special circumstances like late running of train by more than three hours and cancellation of trains.
Duplicate Tatkal tickets are not issued under normal circumstances. "In exceptional cases, duplicate Tatkal tickets can be issued on payment of full fare including Tatkal charges," the official said.
Railways have also initiated steps to augment e-ticket handling capacity of its website through short-term and long- term measures. The present e-ticket capacity is being increased from existing about 3.5 lakh bookings to around 5 lakh bookings per day in about four months, which will further be increased to about 8 lakh bookings per day in the long term.