- Tatkal booking window faced technical glitches causing delays and payment issues for users
- Users reported app crashes, buffering, error messages, and tickets quickly moving to waitlist status
- Complaints flooded social media with users expressing frustration over failed bookings and deducted payments
For millions of Indian travellers, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Tatkal booking window is a daily race against time. Tatkal tickets are designed for last-minute travel. Bookings open one day before the journey. There are limited seats, booked on a first-come, first-served basis. Once the tickets are confirmed, there are no refunds for cancellations. But on a recent morning, many people were unable to book tickets due to technical glitches.
IRCTC Tatkal Window Crashes, Social Media Flooded With Complaints
As the Tatkal window opened for non-AC tickets at 11 am, users trying to book trains ran into chaos. Instead of smooth bookings, many people faced endless buffering at every step, sudden app and website crashes, payments getting deducted without ticket confirmation, error messages like “Not Found”, and tickets jumping to “REGRET” (waitlist/full) within minutes. In short, the system appeared to break down at every step.
Users quickly shared their frustration on X (formerly X). One user shared a step-by-step breakdown of their failed attempt, “Logged in before 11 AM, started booking exactly at 11:00 AM, continuous buffering at every step, payment processed after long delay, End result: ticket NOT booked, but money deducted.”
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Another didn't mince words and shared, “After 2–3 minutes it's showing all tickets in REGRET. A scam going on, nothing else.” A frequent complaint was about technical glitches.
One user wrote, “RailOne app glitch during Tatkal, showing ‘Not Found' even when seats are available.”
Highlighting the bigger frustration, one user questioned how a country known for global IT services struggles with its own system: Some even suggested scrapping the system altogether, saying, “If you can't provide good services… just close the Tatkal window permanently.”
IRCTC Responds To Server Issues
Responding to the flood of complaints, IRCTC called it a “temporary issue” and advised users to log out and restart the app, clear the app's cache, reinstall the app, switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data, and ensure they are using the latest version of the app. For unresolved cases, they were asked to file detailed complaints with technical data like device type, IP address, and error timing.
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Tatkal bookings have always been intense, but incidents like this have travellers confused: Is the system equipped to handle peak demand, or are genuine users being edged out by bots or agents?
