Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), the digital arm of Indian Railways, resumed its e-ticketing services on Monday after leaving users in difficulty for over an hour. Both its mobile app and website had been down due to maintenance activity.

The disruption of the railway ticket booking platform, which began around 10 am, came to light as passengers struggled to secure Tatkal reservations. The timing of the outage coincided with the opening of the Tatkal ticket booking window, frustrating many who were unable to book tickets.

Downdetector, a service that tracks online disruptions, revealed widespread issues, with approximately 50% of website users unable to access the platform. Furthermore, 40% of app users faced functionality problems, while 10% encountered specific errors during ticket booking.

Passengers reported login failures, search errors, and incomplete transactions, highlighting the severe impact of the outage during the crucial booking period.

What downtime message said?

The official IRCTC website, irctc.co.in, provided the following notice:

"Due to scheduled maintenance, the e-ticketing service will be unavailable for the next one hour. Please try again later.
For cancellations or to file a TDR, kindly contact customer care at:
Phone: 14646, 0755-6610661, 0755-409
Email: etickets@irctc.co.in