Sad State of Railway Reservation Portal (irctc.co.in)

Dear Sir,

More than 10 crore indians actively use Indian Railways as a mode of travel. A large of part of this population uses railways ticket booking portal: www.irctc.co.in

In the last few months, I have noted a steady decline in the performance of this portal causing inconvenience to the travellers. The key issues faced are extremely slow response, failed transactions, frequent time-outs, payment gateway failures etc. These issues are forcing travellers to revert back to age old queue system at ticket counters, thus making them suseptible to agents, touts, and other not-so-legal means of obtaining train reservations.

In view of massive internetization during the last 5 years, governments across the world are increasing depending on internet/ e-governance, to deliver services directly to citizens, thus eliminating the middle-men/ agents etc. And what we have is an exactly opposite phenomenon. Almost seems like government is hand-in-gloves with these touts/ agents

Just imagine what will be left of a railway official, if no-one has to depend on a them 'ever' to get a ticket through myriad quotas they control...

During the last 5 years, we have seen railways almost double its fares on the pretext of better service/ better safety, but we have seen little improvement in terms of its service delivery in general and the reservation services in particular. The apathy of railways almost gives a feeling that vested interests are putting their weight behind to ensure 'no action' is taken to improve the situation, and ensure that customers continue to depend on their mercies/ doles - Thus allowing to them to maintain their importance and unnecessary involvement is processes such as reservation.

I am calling upon the PM's office to look into this matter, and instruct involved officials to take immediate remedial steps...