NEW DELHI: Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw recently reviewed the progress of ongoing reforms in the passengers reservation system and emphasized the need for smart, transparent, accessible and efficient ticketing system with a focus on passenger convenience, the ministry on Sunday said.
Under Vaishnaw's guidance, officials are working to prepare the reservation chart eight hours before the train's departure instead of the current system of four hours.
"It will benefit passengers travelling from remote locations or suburbs of major cities for catching long distance trains. It will also provide more time to make alternative arrangements in case the wait list is not confirmed," the ministry said in a press note.
"The new upgraded Passenger Reservation System will allow over 1.5 lakh ticket bookings per minute. This will be an increase of roughly five times from 32,000 tickets per minute in the current PRS," it added.
The ministry stated the new Passenger Reservation System (PRS) also has a multilingual and user-friendly booking and enquiry interface.
In the new PRS, users will be able to submit their choice of seat and see the fare calendar. It also has integrated facilities for Divyangjan, students and patients etc., officials said.
"Streamlined authentication for Tatkal bookings Indian Railways will allow only authenticated users to book Tatkal tickets on IRCTC website and mobile app beginning 1st July, 2025," the ministry added.
It emphasised that OTP-based authentication will be done for Tatkal bookings from the end of July.
The minister instructed officials to broadbase the authentication mechanism for Tatkal bookings.
"The authentication should be done using Aadhaar or any other verifiable Government ID available in the user's DigiLocker account," the press note said.
According to the ministry, these measures reflect the Indian Railways' continuous efforts to modernise its systems and make them more citizen friendly.