No Aadhaar, No Tatkal: Indian Railways To Bring Changes In Tatkal Ticket Bookings: How To Authenticate Aadhaar

Tatkal Booking IRCTC: In a major change for Indian Railways Tatkal and Premium Tatkal bookings, the Ministry of Railways is planning to rollout mandatory Aadhaar verification feature for its passengers.

Mandatory e-Aadhaar authentication will make IRCTC Tatkal booking easier and will also provide better opportunities for genuine passengers to book their tickets, which are normally occupied by railway agents.

IRCTC Tatkal Booking Revamp With Aadhaar

The revised mandatory Aadhaar authentication to book Tatkal tickets would increase chances of railway ticket bookings for genuine passengers, stated Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnav.

"Bharatiya Railways will soon start using e-Aadhaar authentication to book Tatkal tickets. This will help genuine users get confirmed tickets during need," read a post by Ashwini Vaishnaw on X on Thursday.

Indian Railways Other Initiative To Boost IRCTC Ticket Booking Experience

Apart from planning to make Aadhaar verification mandatory, Indian Railways has already rolled out multiple features to boost passengers' railway ticket booking experience.

The Ministry of Railways has launched an anti-BOT system and also collaborated with top Content Delivery Network (CDN) to boost website performance and prevent automated ticket hoarding.

According to an Economic Times report, nearly 50% of login attempts during Tatkal hours were automated, but these attempts yield no result at present time after latest IRCTC upgrades. As per ET report, more than 2.5 crore suspicious user IDs have been deactivated. The application also uses AI-powered detection tools to monitor performance and detect any suspicious bot activity.

The Indian Railways recently set a record by booking around 31,814 tickets in just one minute. Amid rising online railway ticket bookings, daily user logins have also jumped significantly by more than 20% in financial year 2024-25. There has been a sharp surge in daily ticket bookings as well, with e-tickets making up the giant share of overall railway ticket bookings.

Despite multiple initiatives by Indian Railways to improve IRCTC website and application performance, especially at the time of Tatkal booking window, there have been reports of IRCTC application glitches during these periods.

How To Boost Tatkal IRCTC Booking Chances?

While the Indian Railways is yet to make IRCTC e-Aadhaar verification mandatory, there are other ways in which Indain Railway passengers can ease their Tatkal ticket booking experience, by saving the details of the passengers in advance.

How To Authenticate IRCTC User ID With Aadhaar?

-Open www.irctc.co.in in your web browser
-Submit your login credentials and proceed for Sign In.
-Go to MY ACCOUNT tab and select Authenticate User.
-Authenticate User page will appear where user's profile details will be populated.
-Submit your Aadhaar Number or Virtual ID and click on "Verify details and receive OTP" button.
-Submit OTP received on mobile number linked with submitted Aadhaar.
-Read and select the consent checkbox and then click on Submit button to authenticate the details with Aadhaar.
-On successful authentication, confirmation message will be displayed.

-In case of unsuccessful authentication, alert message will be displayed. In such cases, users are requested to re-check the details submitted and try again.

-Authentication status can be checked on selecting the Authenticate User link under MY ACCOUNT tab on top navigation of IRCTC eTicketing website.