IRCTC to unveil new website on July 15

Mumbai: A year after ‘The Perfect Voice’ exposed major glitches with financial implications on the Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC)’s website, the Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has finally cracked the whip.

Responding to live questions from some young students in a Jaipur college, Vaishnaw assured that a new, revamped and efficient IRCTC website is expected to be unveiled on July 15.

The Minister’s assurance came when students of Malviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT) expressed concerns over the poor functioning of the existing website making it difficult to book tickets or get other online services. One female student bluntly complained about the frustrating ‘captcha’ process particularly during Tatkal ticket bookings.

As she stood beside him, Vaishnaw called up a concerned officer in his ministry and asked how long would it take to rectify all the problems. The official assured that a new IRCTC website could be operational within 30 days and the Minister gave him a target date of July 15.

A triumphant Vaishnaw smiled at the student and said “we will launch the new website by July 15” as the gathering acknowledged his quick solution to a lingering problem with a thunderous round of applause.

Slow Website

For years, passengers have complained about the slow or unresponsive IRCTC website during bookings, precious time lost in repeated ‘captchas’, frozen pages with delay in refreshing, or dead payment gateways. By the time the passengers struggled to complete the processes, tickets were sold out adding to their frustrations and leaving them at the mercy of ticketing touts.

Officials say now there is likelihood of a swank, speedy, multilingual, user-friendly platform capable of handling around 1.50 lakh bookings and over 40-lakh inquiries per minute. The features expected include better trains, classes or seat-selection tools, fare calendars, enhanced accessibility for categories like senior citizens, disabled, students and medical patients with a speedy process as promised.

‘The Perfect Voice’ had first highlighted the issue (May 16, 2025) after certain RTI disclosures revealed staggering sums collected by the IRCTC from passengers as ‘Convenience Fees’ (CFs), raising a huge storm in Indian Railway circles.

As per the RTI replies to Pune-based businessman Prafful Sarda, the IRCTC mopped up a staggering Rs 2,619-cr as CFs in just three FYs – 2022-2023, 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 – and also separate charges for bookings made through BHIM or other UPI.

Even more shocking was the admission that the massive amounts are utilized for “the upkeep, maintenance and running” of the website.

“Why did it take a year for the government to wake up to such a serious matter? If they were collecting over Rs 2,600-cr for maintaining and operating the website, then why do passengers still battle for a simple process like e-ticket bookings? Strangely, the Minister made the announcement only after some students publicly raised the matter,” Sarda told ‘The Perfect Voice’ on Friday.

IRCTC - Don of IR’s e-ticketing

The IRCTC’s data reveals that it controls almost 83 pc of IR’s e-ticketing market and the rest is shared by other portals, authorized agents, etc. Yet the complaints pertaining to peak hour or season server overloads, delayed responses, payment failures and inaccessibility remained unsolved.

Council for Protection of Rights (CPR) President Barrister Vinod Tiwari had described the IRCTC’s stupendous CFs collections as “criminal loot” in the guise of website maintenance expenses and even demanded an independent investigation by a central agency.

After the expose by ‘The Perfect Voice’, official sources said that an internal probe was initiated, a new website, RailOne was launched, and several political leaders across parties had raised the matter in different forums, yet millions of passengers continued to suffer.