Indian Railways has just launched a new app for ticket-booking.
The Railways have replaced the old one that had a host of complaints against it — from no ticket booked despite money being deducted for it, to problems with synchronising of ticket booking data on the app and on the official Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website.
The new app — launched on January 10, 2017 — is called IRCTC Rail Connect, as opposed to the IRCTC Connect earlier. According to an official statement from the Railways, the new app offers "the power of next-generation e-ticketing system like high performance and enhanced security." The new app, like the old one, is available both on Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store.
What's gone
There have been a number of complaints with the older app, which was last updated in December-end 2016. The Railway ministry said in its statement that it has addressed many of these issues in the latest app, so that the traveller faces fewer hassles.
In the ministry's own words, gone are "[the rule of] no bookings allowed from 8 am to noon," "ticket booking views not [being] synchronised with website bookings," "[absence of] features like current booking and boarding point change," "slow response time" and "low security levels," from an app that had been downloaded crores of times.
What's new
The new app, which has already been downloaded more than 1 lakh times for Android alone, since its launch, has the following features:
- 24/7 service with no time-based checks.
- Synchronisation of mobile app with NGET for ticket booking.
- Simple and easy user interface
- Supports general, ladies, tatkal & premium tatkal quota booking.
- Facility of
- Cancellation and filing of TDR for tickets booked through website.
- Current booking
- Boarding point change
- PNR enquiry
- Tatkal booking provided in a controlled manner
- Advanced security features of self-assigned PIN to login without entering username and password on each login.
- New User registration and activation from App directly.
- Integrated with IRCTC e-wallet for faster and hassle-free transactions.
- Users can view and cancel old mobile app tickets also.
The new app has also been linked to 40 banks so customers can pay for tickets from these accounts.
