The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation’s (IRCTC) website was down the entire day on Thursday due to the Diwali rush, making it nearly impossible to get e-tickets.
Officials claim that the rush was primarily due to people wanting to book tatkal tickets for the weekend. At times, the website even flashed message “Sorry, connection problem. Please try again later”. Frustrated travellers took to social networking sites to vent out their anger, criticising the IRCTC portal and its slow service.
“I have been making repeated attempts to book two tickets since this morning, however, the login page just refused to load,” said Jignesh Maniar, who found it difficult to make a reservation.
When Pradeep Kundu, joint manager, public relations, IRCTC was contacted, he replied, “The website is slow due to Diwali rush. Too many people accessing the website at the same time has slowed ot down.”
“With the weekend starting from tomorrow, there are passengers who want a confirmed ticket using the Tatkal option. It is primarily the Tatkal passengers who want to travel during the Diwali weekend. Yesterday, the website was functioning absolutely fine as people cannot book Tatkal tickets two days in advance,” added Mr Kundu. As per Tatkal rules, a ticket can be reserved only a day in advance.
Yatin Deshpande, another person who was trying to book a ticket on Thursday said, “I hope, the website doesn’t gives the same problem on Friday or else it will be very difficult for me to reach home to celebrate Diwali with my parents.”
The site was up and running by Thursday evening.