India is home to over 1.3 billion people. Travelling in this country is far from an easy task. Even with a vast and sophisticated network of the Indian Railways possess, most trains are overcrowded and booking a seat itself is a hard task. The railways ferry over 8 billion people in a year, and most of the bookings are processed through the Railways website. Booking a ticket can practically be impossible, especially if it is done during an emergency or at a very short notice.
Luckily one guy figured out a way to make such bookings possible and to clear the congestion line for getting train tickets. He was Dinesh Mehta, an entrepreneur, and a graduate of IIFT, New Delhi, XLRI Jamshedpur and MNIT Jaipur. He seeded the thought of the idea, planned it extensively and introduced the whole scheme to the Government of India. He pushed for it to be implemented, which has proved to be one of the best decisions taken by the IRCTC.
Some important features of the Tatkal booking scheme are:
- The booking starts at 11:00 am for all air-conditioned coaches and 10:00 am for all sleeper coaches.
- Ticket booking opens at 10:00 am, one day before the date of the journey. The day of the trip is when the charts are prepared.
- No entire train or coach is defined as Tatkal. Unsold Tatkal tickets are given back to passengers on the waiting list. Confirmed tickets can be cancelled, but refunds are withheld. Tatkal tickets on the waiting list can be cancelled and are refunded.
- During the months of April and September, Tatkal accounts for nearly 80% of all bookings. As a result, something known as Tatkal charges is levied. If the usage exceeds 80% of all bookings, then the costs are levied throughout the year to balance losses for the IRCTC.
- Tatkal is heavily dependent on internet speeds as it operates on a first come, first serve basis. The faster the internet speeds, the more likely you are to be higher on the Tatkal list.
- On October 1st, 2014 a new service called Premium Tatkal booking was introduced, the Tatkal charges for these tickets are nearly double of a regular Tatkal ticket. The program was launched as a pilot with 80 trains, and half of the seats on the trains are reserved for this purpose.
Abuse of the Tatkal feature
A severe misuse of this scheme where people book tickets prior to Tatkal timings and sell it on the black market was found. To combat this, the Ministry of Railways changed the schedules of Tatkal bookings and debarred all reservations including IRCTC agents to book tickets half an hour before the start of booking Tatkal train time. The timings are 8-8:30 am for general class, 10- 10:30 am for AC class and 11-11:30 for non-AC class.
