Southern Railway proposes to introduce Tamil on IRCTC website

“The recommendation was mooted based on suggestions received from people who commute by rail. Our idea is to reach as many users (people) as we can. Like IVRS (interactive voice response system), which gives the option of choosing the language to the user, we thought language option would help users navigate the ticket booking website with ease. 

Introduction of Tamil language on ticket booking website would also increase traction as non-English users would also access the website,” a highly placed SR officer told DTNext. 

“The proposal is ready. The recommendation letter will be sent to the Railway Board in two days,” the officer revealed. The Board would then forward the recommendation to CRIS (Centre for Railway Information systems), the IT think tank of railway ministry that manages all technological Internet based activities of Indian Railways. CRIS would examine the modalities involved in introducing language (read as Tamil) option on IRCTC website. 

SR had introduced tri-lingual UTS (unreserved ticketing system) tickets recently by printing tickets in Tamil (Unreserved tickets were printed only in English and Hindi thus far). 

SR had translated a whopping 9,000 plus station names in Tamil and Malayalam from English by forming four separate teams in the zone before introducing tri-lingual tickets, which were first experimented upon and implemented in Karnataka. 

Given the availability of Tamil station names in CRIS database, which developed the software for the tri-lingual unreserved ticketing system, it should not be difficult to use the same for application on IRCTC website, another SR officer wellversed with the technical know how of the ticketing system, reasoned.