Aadhaar May Become Compulsory To Book Railway Tickets

Aadhaar card, a unique 12 digit identity number which is based on the biometric and demographic data may soon become mandatory for residents of India to book railway tickets if in case the new recommendation proposed by the railway report is implemented.

Yesterday, senior officials from the Centre for Information Railway System (CRIS), Delhi had arrived in Mumbai to interrogate the suspect Salman Khan, who is believed to be the mastermind behind one of the biggest railway ticket rackets which recently emerged.

The railway officials have arrested Khan on May 2 and seized more than 6,000 e-tickets valued approximately around Rs 1.5 crore from him. Khan allegedly operated a network of 5,400 agents across the country and charged Rs 700 on a monthly basis from each agent to use his booking software.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) and the Central Railway (CR) officers were present during the questioning procedure. Post interrogation, the CRIS, and IRCTC technical heads submitted a joint report to the railway board, which included suggestions from the accused Khan on how to end the existing racket.

As per the joint report, prepared by the group general manager (IT) Sunil Kumar from IRCTC and general manager of PRS, CRIS, Vinod Bhatia- all 6,449 IDs which were used to generate the 6,603 seized PNRs have been deactivated. Apart from this 1,510 similar other user IDs were also deactivated.

To improvise the security of the ticketing system, the report suggested that passengers user ID should be linked to their respective Aadhaar numbers and the railways may adopt the suggestion, sources said. The report also suggests that a question or OTP could be introduced after the 'Book Now' button is pushed, this will be done to break the sequence of automation and to make the process more secure.

The report further suggested that raids should be conducted even on the agents to whom the accused had sold his software. During the interrogation procedure, Khan had suggested ways to restrict the IP address. Currently, there is no restriction on the IP address to book the tickets, said an official who was part of the interrogation.

As of now, only one or two tickets will be generated at a time using one IP address. Railways have started working on this suggestion seriously.