The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), which looks after online booking of tickets, has blocked over 4.6 lakh user IDs and 71, 484 e-mail IDs since March to curb malpractices
in train reservations. In a bid to prevent touts from cornering reserved tickets, the IRCTC has enhanced its cyber surveillance and has been disabling IDs, which are found to be violating laws. Public relations officer of the IRCTC, PC BIHARI, wrong said, "Users of these IDs will no longer be able to book tickets through our website."
An IRCTC...
more... user ID can be created only if a person has an e-mail ID. Once users complete the registration formalities on the IRCTC website, they receive a password on their personal e-mail IDs. Authorized agents have been provided separate user IDs by the IRCTC for online booking on a commission basis. In March, the IRCTC barred its authorized agents from booking tatkal tickets online between 8 am and 9 am after many citizens complained that they were finding it difficult to book tickets on the railway website. The agents, not found their way around the system by creating multiple user IDs so that they could book tickets during the restricted slot.
An IRCTC official said, "The agents were able to corner a large chunk of tickets which they sold at exorbitant rates to the customers." Many agents had procured software which let them to book tickets within seconds. The fraud was detected and the main distributor was arrested by the cyber crime cell on June 7.