'Touts use bots to block Tatkal tickets': Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw reveals new Tatkal booking rules; check details here

Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday said that only authenticated customers whose KYC is complete will be able to book Tatkal tickets online from July 1, 2025.

“Touts and unethical people use bots to block Tatkal tickets within a minute or two. To deal with this, from July 1, only those customers who are authenticated and whose KYC is done will be able to book Tatkal tickets online. And on window counters, Tatkal ticket customers will need to show identity proof. This will end inconvenience in the Tatkal system,” Vaishnaw said while inaugurating in-plant railway siding at Maruti Suzuki’s manufacturing facility in Manesar.

To further ease the anxiety of train passengers, Vaishnaw said charts for some trains are now getting prepared 24 hours before departure, as against 4 hours prior to departure. “This will end uncertainty for passengers,” he said.

About 720 crore passengers travelled in trains in the financial year 2024-25.

Indian Railways had many legacy problems, said Vaishnaw. “For 60 years, Indian Railways was ignored. Railway budget was a meagre ₹25,000-30,000 crore before 2014,” he said. “In the last 11 years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a methodical and sustained way, developed railways and its budget was increased to ₹2.5 lakh crore.”

“Earlier, there were no proper toilets in trains. There used to be a small hole and the tracks used to get soiled with that. Stations used to be dirty,” Vaishnaw rued, adding that passengers are benefiting as these services have improved.

The Union minister said Indian Railways has taken a big decision to roll out 50 new ‘Amrit Bharat’ trains. 6 new Amrit Bharat trains are ready, he said.

Indian Railways, according to Vaishnaw, has risen to the second spot in cargo carrying capacity across the world. “Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar multi-modal cargo terminal is one of the largest such terminals spread across over 45 acres of land,” he said. The railway siding will have a dispatch capability of 450,000 vehicles at full capacity.

“There used to be a complex process to set up multi-modal cargo terminals. In 2021, reforms were introduced and the whole process was simplified. In a short span, 108 multi-modal cargo terminals are ready,” said Vaishnaw.

The Manesar railway siding, registered under the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan, has been developed as part of the 126 kilometres Haryana Orbital Rail Corridor (HORC) running from Sonipat to Palwal in Haryana. The project has been executed by a joint venture company called Haryana Orbital Rail Corporation Ltd (HORCL). Under the joint venture, MSIL has committed to invest ₹325 crore in developing HORC. Additionally, MSIL has invested about ₹127 crore towards internal yard development. Overall, MSIL’s total investment is about ₹452 crore.