Feb 21, 2008 05:46 PM
11304 Views
IRCTC, the website of our indian railway might be the only useful government website who is oriented towards indian customers. The traffic ranking of https://irctc.co.in is 1879 as per Alexa, the web traffic analyser. That is irctc is the 1879th most visited website in the world. We indians should be proud of it. Atleast we indians can say their is a customer oriented website in internet that is from a company owned by indian government.
I will use this coloumn to help you to book a ticket through irctc and how to use it efficently.
Any one can register and book tickets through irctc. the website url is https://irctc.co.in/
once you register you will get a username and password which you can use it the future logons and book tickets.
in the first screen enter the source and destination places. you cannot enter the place name in your words. Irctc has their own railway names for places. select date, class, and ticket type if needed select Tatkal.
Ticket Type: Two types of ticket are available in irctc website. first one isIticket and second e-ticket. first one is just a normal ticket same as you will get from the common ticket counter. second one is the e-ticket which you can take a print out immediately after booking. I strongly recommend E-ticket provided you should have a valid ID card like Pan, voters, passport etc. and a printer.
Iticket will be delivered after 2 or 3 days and it is not recommended.
Even when computers are sincere humans are not. they will deliver ticket only after 2 or 3 days. we have to make a call to courier and ask them to deliver.
While booking Iticket please make sure you have entered the correct delivery address and your pincode is covered by the courier agency. While booking eticket and while travelling ensure that you are carrying a valid id card like pan, voters id, passport, driving licence. Railway TTE will ask you for the eticket print out and id card. if you dont have id card they will treat journey as without ticket.
Even in some cases if you dont have time to take a print out of your ticket you may take the print out of the email recieved from care@irctc.co.in and show it to the officials. why because irctc will not allow you to print ticket after the chart preparation. that is important. hence print the ticket as soon as you book the ticket.
Cancellation is a simple thing(some times not. it is horrible) in irctc. you can cancel your ITicket at any computerised reservation counter in india and money will be credited into your account in not more than a week. Eticket cancellation is easy. just log into the website. go to my tickets history. select the journey date and click cancel e-ticket. it will be done immediately and the money will be credited back within few days.
Some points to remember while bookingticket
Book ticket using a high speed broad band internet connection. since irctc will take time to load it is better to access it from a broadband internet center.
while booking eticket make sure you provided a valid id card and mention the passenger no who own the id card. carry the same while travelling. Also mention the ID Card No correctly. Take the print out as soon as possible and dont wait for journey date.
Do not delete the conformation email yor recieved from Irctc until you finish the journey. it is a valid record with ticket booking reference no.
If any communication failure occurs during booking dont panic, you can continue booking but recommended after sometime. call their customer care no's available at their website immediately to make sure booking has not been done.
A common sense while booking ticket is look how fast the website is loading. if the website is loading quickly or at average speed book the ticket. if the website is sluggish or extremely slow please dont book the ticket. you may try from another internet center. because their is a high chance of communication failure and your money will be debited. but it will be credited back later.
A Very useful feature that they launched is Irctc mobile. people who have Gprs on their phone may download irctc mobile and check the ticket status, pnr enquiry etc. it can be downloaded from https://irctcmobile.co.in/ CAUTION: NEVER EVER BOOK TICKET USING THIS TOOL. AS IT WILL HANG UP AND COMMUNICATION FAILURE WILL OCCUR.
Another useful feature while booking ticket which I observed and I really got a chance was "Consider for Automatic upgradation" option checked. Check that option while bookng. if you are lucky you may get a free AC Ticket. No need to pay anything.
Customer care is not good. to get a person we need to dial manytimes. but this website is excellent. Keep it up.
Anil kumar
