In yet another passenger-friendly initiative, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has extended the time for e-ticket booking on its portal by 15 minutes - till 11.45 p.m.
Before the introduction of the new timing, passengers were allowed to book tickets through e-ticketing till 11.30 p.m.
Under the earlier arrangement, the IRCTC used to shut down its main server for one hour every day - from 11.30 p.m. to 12. 30 a.m. - for its repair. During this one hour, e-ticketing service was fully closed.
With the introduction of the new system on September 20, IRCTC's main server will be closed for 45 minutes only-from 11.45 p.m. to 12.30 a.m.
It is because of such an arrangement that passengers can now avail e-ticketing facility for an extra 15 minutes.
Recently, IRCTC, a 'mini Ratna' PSU of Indian Railways, had imported five new HP Itanium servers from Singapore to speed up e-ticketing operations on its digital platform. Earlier on June 1, it had installed two Linux-enabled servers, substantially raising the booking capacity of e-tickets.
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"The introduction of these new high-speed servers has substantially enhanced the website performance, including log-in time and payment gateway. That is why passengers are getting 15 more minutes for e-ticketing service," said Dr. A K Manocha, Chairman and Managing Director, IRCTC.
The average daily sale of train tickets through the portal, which is the world's second busiest with 3 crore registered users, is around 5.5 to 6 lakh.
The extended time period will also be available to passengers on the 'current counters' at railway stations, where tickets can be booked and cancelled.