The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) faced a major outage on Thursday morning, leaving countless users unable to book or manage train tickets during the crucial Tatkal booking period. The disruption, reportedly caused by maintenance activities, triggered widespread frustration, with many turning to social media to voice their grievances.
Social Media Reactions
Angry users flooded X (formerly Twitter) with complaints. One user wrote, “How can the IRCTC website crash during Tatkal timings? Why focus on building bullet trains when we can’t maintain a basic website?” Another remarked, “India reached the moon, but the IRCTC app still crashes during Tatkal bookings. Stable servers shouldn’t be rocket science in 2024!”
Some users shared screenshots of the error message displayed on the platform, which read: “Due to maintenance activity, e-ticketing service will not be available. Please try later.” The message also provided helpline numbers (14646, 08044647999, and 08035734999) and an email address (etickets@irctc.co.in) for ticket cancellations during the downtime.
Outage Impact Across India
Downdetector, a real-time outage monitoring platform, recorded over 2,000 reports of IRCTC being down by 11:48 AM. The disruption affected users in cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, and others.
Public Backlash
Users expressed discontent with the lack of reliable infrastructure despite India’s advancements in technology. Comments like “India, the IT hub of the world, can’t maintain a functioning ticketing platform” reflected the collective disappointment.
IRCTC Response
While no official statement was issued addressing the incident, the platform urged users to contact their customer service helplines for immediate assistance.
As India’s busiest railway ticketing platform, IRCTC’s unavailability during peak hours has once again raised concerns about the need for robust infrastructure to handle high traffic.
