The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website and app experienced a major outage on Saturday, disrupting ticket bookings during the busy festive season. This marks the second such disruption ahead of the holidays.
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website and app went down again on Saturday (October 25) leaving travelers across the country scrambling to book tickets during the busy festive season. Users trying to make reservations were greeted with the frustrating message: "This Site is currently unreachable, please try after some time."
This marks the second major disruption in recent weeks, following similar glitches just before Diwali. With millions eager to travel for celebrations, the repeated downtime has caused considerable stress and inconvenience.
Tatkal Booking Window Hits a Roadblock
Reports on social media indicate that the outage began around 10:00 AM, coinciding with the opening of the Tatkal booking window for AC tickets. Passengers trying to secure last-minute travel plans were met with the dreaded "Server Unavailable" error, forcing many to give up in frustration.
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Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has been flooded with complaints, with users sharing screenshots of their failed booking attempts. The outage was also tracked on Downdetector, a platform monitoring website and app status, confirming that the IRCTC portal was indeed down.
Here are a few tweets:
IRCTC Yet to Address the Issue
So far, IRCTC has not issued an official statement explaining the cause of the outage or when services will resume. A previous disruption lasted only a few hours, allowing bookings to resume, but the recurrence during the peak festive period has left passengers anxious and upset.
Railways Take Steps to Ease Festive Travel
Despite the online booking challenges, the North Eastern Railway has taken proactive measures to manage the surge in travelers. A total of 186 special trains have been introduced to meet the demand. In addition, extra ticket counters and digital display boards have been set up at major stations, including Gorakhpur, to help smooth passenger flow during the busy holiday season.
