In order to curb e-ticketing malpractices, a number of preventive and punitive measures have been taken by Indian Railways. Some of the important initiatives taken in this regard, to make IRCTC reservation website, foolproof are as under:
- Instructions have been issued to ensure that tickets are not booked on abbreviated names and full name of the passenger and the surname wherever applicable are captured at the time of booking reserved tickets.
- Carrying of prescribed identity proof has been made compulsory for one of the passengers while undertaking journey in reserved class.
- Regular checks are conducted in mass contact areas such as Passenger Reservation System (PRS) centers, Booking Offices, Platforms, Trains etc. to prevent unauthorized ticketing activities including the use of scripting software. Such checks are also intensified during peak period like festivals, holidays etc.
- Checks are applied through CAPTCHA on minimum time required to enter the Passenger details, Online payment and filling of CAPTCHA by the user. Time limit to fill passenger reservation form is set to 20 seconds for up to 2 passengers, 25 seconds for 3 to 4 passengers and 30 seconds for 5 to 6 passengers. The minimum time limit for any booking has been set as 40 seconds, with break up of 20 seconds for passenger form filling and 20 seconds for online payment through banks.
- The authorized agents of IRCTC have been restricted from booking tickets during first fifteen minutes of opening the Advance Reservation Period (ARP) booking and Tatkal booking.
- General public are also educated through Public Address System and media, not to buy tickets from unscrupulous elements and consequences of buying tickets from these sources.
- Restrictions have been put on creation of IRCTC user ID and booking of tickets per user. Individual users are allowed only 12 tickets in a month, unless authenticated through Aadhaar in which 24 tickets can be booked in a month to prevent mass booking by a single user.
- Individual users are logged out in case enquiries exceed 25 per session during opening hours i.e. from 08:00 to 12:00.
- Blocking of Foreign IP addresses at Advance Reservation Period (ARP) and Tatkal time has been done at network level.
- Agent booking (except Defence) is completely restricted from 08:00 hours to 08:15 hours for opening ARP Booking in General (GN) quota and 10:00 to 10:15 hours and 11:00 to 11:15 hours for opening Tatkal Quota.
- Multilayer security & regular audits by Standardization Testing and Quality Certification (STQC). All standard security protocols of e ticketing systems are put in place for the e ticketing system.
- Fictitious user IDs based on junk mail IDs and addresses are weeded out on a daily basis.
- All card based payments are secured by 3D-Secure, an additional security layer for online credit transactions, under the name Verified by visa, MasterCard SecureCode and American Express Safekey.
- Regular drives are conducted by RPF against persons/agencies found involved in unauthorized carrying on of business of procuring and supplying of railway tickets. The offenders are booked under section 143 of the Railways Act. Cases having wider ramifications and involving ingredients of other offences are dealt in coordination with other law enforcement agencies like Police & CBI.
This information was given by the Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronic & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on Friday.
