From Tuesday, booking of tatkal tickets will start at 10 a.m., instead of 8 a.m.
For two hours, from 10.00 a.m. to 12 noon, no IRCTC agent will be allowed to access the Internet, or authorised to purchase tickets from the reservation counters.
Tatkal tickets can be booked only a day in advance of the scheduled journey.
This move comes to prevent touts from cornering tickets and seeking bribes for the official premium on tatkal.
Besides furnishing their identity cards, passengers will mandatorily have to provide their mobile numbers to facilitate cross-verification by the authorities.
Approximately 11.57 lakh berths are booked daily, of which tatkal booking, with 1.71 lakh tickets, accounts for 14.75 per cent. The premium yields additional revenue of Rs. 847 crore to the Railways, annually.
