IRCTC’s Anti-BOT Technology, Mitigates 64% of Malicious Traffic to Ensure Genuine Users Can Access Tickets
3.04 Crore User Accounts Deactivated in 2025 for Fake or Malicious IDs, Including Unrealistic Mobile Numbers, Disposable Email Domains, Sequential and Gibberish Usernames
1,80,474 User Accounts Re-Activated After Revalidation Since 2025: Ashwini Vaishnaw
IRCTC Takes Strong Action Against Malicious Activity: 408 Cyber Crime Complaints Filed Pertaining to 4.07 lakh Suspicious PNRs
Posted On: 25 MAR 2026 5:33PM by PIB Delhi
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has provided the facility to book reserved tickets online saving passengers from the trouble of going to reservation counters to book the tickets thus saving travel time and transportation costs.
IRCTC incurs substantial expenditure on providing online ticketing facility and in order to defray the cost incurred in maintenance, upgradation and expansion of ticketing infrastructure, a very nominal convenience fee is levied by IRCTC.
The online ticket booking facility provided by IRCTC is one of the most passenger friendly initiatives of Indian Railways and its acceptance can be gauged from the fact that at present approximately 88% of the reserved tickets are booked online.
Clerkage is levied on cancellation of all waitlisted tickets including cancelled through IRCTC website as per the Railway Passengers (Cancellation of Tickets and Refund of Fare) Rules, 2015, notified through Gazette notification and as amended from time to time. Review and rationalization of policy is a continuous and ongoing process.
To prevent the misuse of the reservation facility & to ensure transparency, the following steps have been taken by Indian Railways:
i. With effect from 01-07-2025, tickets under Tatkal Scheme can be booked through the website of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC)/its app only by Aadhaar authenticated users.
ii. During the opening day of general reservation of ARP, the reserved general tickets can be booked through the website of IRCTC or its app only by Aadhar authenticated users.
Measures taken in this regard have improved ease of booking by reducing instant booking of tickets. The system has also been made more equitable by restricting multiple bookings using fake accounts. No user account has been deactivated due to non-linking of Aadhaar.
The comparative details of number of tickets booked online and through counter during financial year of 2025-26 (upto February, 26) is as under:
Financial Year
No. of tickets booked online
(in crore)
No. of tickets booked through counter (in crore)
2025-26
(upto February, 26)
48.25
6.15
IRCTC adopts broad parameters for identifying fake/malicious user ids/User accounts like, unrealistic mobile numbers, disposable email domains, IP Addresses, Sequential and Gibberish User IDs etc. During calendar year 2025, 3.04 crore user accounts were deactivated and 2.94 crore user accounts were put under temporary suspension with option of Revalidation. However, during the period 01.01.2025 to 28.02.2026, 1,80,474 user accounts have been re-activated.
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