Indian Railways is bringing about several changes to enhance comfort and convenience of passengers. According to the Ministry, these measures reflect the Railways’ continuous efforts to modernise its systems and make them more citizen-friendly.

Now reservation charts will be prepared eight hours in advance for long-distance trains according to an announcement by the Ministry of Railways. Currently chart is prepared four hours ahead of the journey. The decision taken during a recent review meeting chaired by Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, aims to help passengers travelling from remote locations plan their journeys better.

“It will benefit passengers travelling from remote locations or suburbs of major cities for catching long-distance trains. It will also provide more time to make alternative arrangements in case the wait list is not confirmed,” the ministry said in a statement.

New procedure for booking tatkal train tickets

Meanwhile, Indian Railways train ticket operations will also undergo a major revamp. Railways is planning to bring about a new procedure for booking tatkal train tickets, and the overall upgradation of the passenger reservation system. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stressed the importance of developing an intelligent, clear, user-friendly and productive ticketing system.

Indian Railways will allow only authenticated users to book Tatkal tickets on the IRCTC website and its mobile app beginning 1st July, 2025. OTP-based authentication will be done for Tatkal bookings from the end of July.

The minister instructed officials to broaden the authentication mechanism for Tatkal bookings. The authentication should be done using Aadhaar or any other verifiable government ID available in the user’s DigiLocker account.

New Passenger Reservation System with facilities for Divyangjan, students and patients

“The new upgraded Passenger Reservation System (PRS) will allow over 1.5 lakh ticket bookings per minute. This will be an increase of roughly five times from 32,000 tickets per minute in the current PRS,” Railways shared in a statement.

The new Passenger Reservation System has a multilingual and user-friendly booking and enquiry interface. Under the new system, users will be able to submit their choice of seat and see the fare calendar. It also has integrated facilities for Divyangjan, students and patients.

Clerical charges or clerkage may be eliminated

Railways is also considering eliminating or lowering clerical charges, known as “clerkage”, which is currently deducted while processing refunds for unconfirmed waitlisted tickets or cancellations. Presently, railways collects Rs 60 as clerkage for reserved AC and non-AC tickets, while Rs 30 is charged for unreserved second class tickets. This fee applies to all waitlisted ticket cancellations, including those processed through the IRCTC website.