New railway site to counter IRCTC

Fed up with the increasing complaints about the IRCTC website on railway online bookings and reservations, the Indian Railways is now setting up its own parallel railway reservation website.
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website is quite popular and has set records in business.
The railways' move would not only be competition to the IRCTC website but also take off burden of rail bookings from the IRCTC.
Last week, DNA reported about a litany of complaints from commuters about transactions on the IRCTC website with many of them not getting refunds and money being debited and tickets not being booked.
The new site will play a dual role and will give consumers a choice. It will have additional facilities like enabling booking of retiring rooms and other passenger-related requirements.
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation website allows commuters to book, reserve and cancel railway tickets from any internet connection with simplicity, but now it is getting overloaded and there is need for a parallel and a stronger interface.
The word IRCTC was one of the topmost searches conducted by Indians in 2010 according to a survey by Google.
The new site is being developed by Centre for Information and Systems, the IT arm of Indian Railways that now maintains the servers of Indian Railways.
Work on the website is halfway through and it should be ready in six months.
"The new site will have the facility of booking retiring rooms online from the comfort of your home. The CRIS has designed a software programme that will allow a confirmed ticket holder to book a retiring room and this will be linked to the new site. Retiring rooms are railway hotels where a passenger new to the city can stay overnight in air-conditioned comfort," an official working on the project said.