IRCTC launches book now, pay later scheme for Tatkal tickets

Tatkal Ticket Booking Scheme

book-now-pay-later-scheme-for-tatkal-tickets

Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corp (IRCTC) has recently come up with a scheme that allows people to book their Tatkal tickets from its website and then pay it later on as per their convenience. The scheme was launched on August 2. This service was only available for general reservations till now. As far as Tatkal bookings were concerned, people first needed to make the payment through the standard gateways for online payment before their tickets were confirmed by the IRCTC website. IRCTC users would now be able to pay for these tickets with cash, credit card, and debit card.

Tickets at your doorstep

People can also choose to get their tickets right at their doorstep and then make the payment. This information has been provided by Anduril Technologies, the official payment provider of IRCTC. It is supposed that IRCTC processes 130,000 Tatkal applications on a daily basis. Most of these tickets normally are sold out within a few minutes of the portal opening for business for the day. With the new feature there would be no question of transaction failures at all. Quite often it so happens that in spite of money being debited the ticket does not get issued.

No problems anymore

This happens due to a number of reasons with technological issues being the most prominent among them. However, with the new system this will not be the case anymore. It is expected that transaction failures would be a thing of the past. The refund cycle at present is between 7 and 15 days. According to the CEO of Anduril Technologies, Anurag Bajpai, this new facility of paying on delivery would be highly beneficial to millions who travel using trains and book their Tatkal tickets online. Bajpai is hopeful that this programme would be highly successful.

Encouragement to go online – how does it work

A lot of people are saying that with this decision IRCTC is encouraging people to go online for booking their tickets instead of buying them off the physical reservation counters. There is a certain way in which this programme is supposed to work. First of all a user needs to get registered with irctc.payondelivery.co.in so that he can avail the option of payment on delivery. At the time of registration they would need to provide their PAN (permanent account number) or Aadhaar details. The option for paying on delivery needs to be clicked on when a user is buying Tatkal tickets.

Once the ticket is booked digitally it would be sent to the user in an instant either through e-mail or via SMS (short messaging service). The money would be collected within 24 hours of the completion of the booking. The customer can also choose to pay online by using a payment link that will be sent to him when he is booking the ticket/s. It is expected that this service would be highly beneficial to one and all concerned. Apart from the fact it would negate – or at least minimize – transaction failures it would also be of high convenience to people who do not find sufficient time to go and buy train tickets physically, and much rather prefer to do such things online.