New Delhi: With thousands of people trying to log in at the same time to book train tickets, the website went unresponsive on Monday afternoon.
It was only after two hours of the designated time that the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website — online ticket-booking portal of the Railways — started functioning, after 6 pm. And despite the delay, most tickets of some of the routes were exhausted within half an hour, according to a PTI report.
As per the Union government’s decision to resume passenger train service in a graded manner from May 12, bookings for 15 trains were due to open at 4 pm on Monday. But heavy traffic from even before designated time meant that the IRCTC website was unresponsive.
Responding to angry passengers complaining on social media, the Railway Ministry clarified that data pertaining to the trains was being fed and that bookings will be available from the evening.
Data pertaining to special trains is being fed in the IRCTC website. Train ticket bookings will be available in a short while. Please wait. Inconvenience is regretted.
— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) May 11, 2020
Trains for 15 destinations will leave New Delhi on Tuesday. They will connect the national Capital with New Delhi, Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.
Regular passenger train services were stopped in the country from March 25 as part of the nationwide lockdown to control the spread of coronavirus pandemic.
Besides operating goods trains carrying essential commodities and medicines during the lockdown period, the Railways arranged for about 500 Shramik Special trains to carry people stranded in different states to their native places.
