Indian Railways to speed up chart prep, upgrade reservation system, & mandate Aadhaar for Tatkal in booking overhaul

Economic Times

10 hours ago

Indian Railways is set to overhaul its ticketing system, finalizing passenger charts eight hours before departure to enhance predictability for waitlisted passengers. By December 2025, a new Passenger Reservation System (PRS) will be implemented, boosting booking capacity to 1.5 lakh tickets per minute. Furthermore, Aadhaar linkage will be mandatory for Tatkal bookings starting July 1.
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Second-class fare hiked from July 1
Indian Railways is preparing to revamp its ticketing and reservation process by advancing the preparation of train charts, among other measures. According to ET sources, the new system will finalise passenger charts eight hours before a train's departure.The move is aimed at providing better predictability for waitlisted passengers In addition to the early chart preparation, the Railways will roll out a Modern Passenger Reservation System (PRS) by December 2025, sources told ET. The project is being implemented by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS).Once operational, the new PRS will be capable of handling over 1.5 lakh ticket bookings per minute, a nearly five-fold increase from the current capacity of 32,000 tickets per minute.The ticket enquiry system will also see a dramatic upgrade, with enquiry capacity jumping from 4 lakh to over 40 lakh per minute, improving access to real-time booking information for millions of passengers.Meanwhile, sources informed ET that an Aadhaar linkage mandate for Tatkal train bookings will come into effect from July 1. Passengers reserving tickets under the Tatkal quota will be required to provide Aadhaar details during the booking process.The railways expect to carry around 7.57 billion passengers in FY26, compared to 7.27 billion in FY25.The news comes days after officials confirmed to ET that the Indian Railways will increase second-class travel fares by half a paisa per kilometre beyond 500 km starting July.This is the first fare hike since 2020. For mail express trains, the increase translates to 1 paisa per km, while air-conditioned (AC) classes will see a 2 paisa per km rise. However, suburban fares and monthly season tickets will remain unchanged.To put this in perspective, the current per kilometre fare for a 3AC ticket on the Delhi-Howrah route is approximately Rs 1.13.A senior official told ET that these revised rates will be effective from July 1, but tickets booked prior to this date will not be subject to the fare increase.According to the ET report, his fare revision aligns with the railway ministry's budget estimates for fiscal year 2025-26, which targets passenger fare revenue of Rs 92,800 crore, up from Rs 80,000 crore in the previous year.The last fare hike in 2020 raised second-class fares by 1 paisa per km, sleeper class fares by 2 paisa, and AC fares by 4 paisa. A more substantial hike was implemented in 2013, with second-class fares increasing by 2 paisa, sleeper and 2AC fares by 6 paisa, and other AC categories by 10 paisa per km.