Indian Railways reduces Advance Reservation Period to 60 days, for booking tickets

With effect from 01 November 2024, Advance Reservation Period for booking Indian Railways tickets will be cut down from current 120 days to 60 days.

Indian Railways train in a railway station. Representative Image. Photo by satvik pandurangi.

From 1st November 2024 onwards, Advance Reservation Period (ARP) for booking reserved tickets on Indian Railways will be reduced to 60 days instead of the current 120 days limit, as announced by the Ministry of Railways today on 17th October 2024. This 60 days is excluding the date of the journey.

In the announcement, the Ministry of Railways, Govt. of India, has said that they've taken this step to promote genuine passengers booking the advance tickets and to minimise the rising "no show" trend that they observed. They said that better visibility of genuine rail travel demand will help railways to plan more special trains in advance. "No show" here means people not showing up for travelling in the train after the tickets were booked in advance and the tickets weren't cancelled either, which results in empty reserved seats with no passengers.

Indian Railways noticed that about 21% of ticket reservations for 61 to 120 day periods were getting cancelled. They also noticed that 5% of passengers were not cancelling their tickets but they were not showing up for the journey too. This No Show trend, along with other factors, was behind this decision of reduction of advance booking period by Indian Railways, which they claim will help them in better planning of special trains during the peak seasons.

Note that the 365-day ARP limit for foreign tourists remains unchanged. That is, this change in advance booking period is for domestic travellers or tourists only. All the existing bookings made under the current 120-day ARP until October 31, 2024, will remain valid. Reservations made beyond the new ARP of 60 days will still be eligible for cancellation. Also note that certain daytime express trains, such as the Taj Express and Gomti Express, will continue to follow the lower time limits for advance reservations.[1]

Based on the emerging reservation trends and passenger’s uncertainty of travel, Indian Railways keeps changing their ARP policy, and they aim to improve ticket availability for genuine passengers and reduce instances of cancellations and no-shows which result in wastage of reserved berths.

With a shorter ARP, the railways say that passengers will now once again have better clarity in their travel plans, reducing the current 21% cancellation rate. This Advance Reservation Period (ARP) for booking train tickets was earlier increased to 120 days from 60 days, since from 01 January 2015. And even earlier during 01 Sepetember 1995 to 31 January 1998, this ARP period was as low as 30 days.

The new policy aims to tackle the issue of passengers not showing up without cancelling their tickets, which often leads to impersonation and fraud. The Indian Railways urges all passengers to be informed of this change and encourages early bookings within the revised ARP to ensure smooth travel planning.

Now, if you live India and travelled by trains, you'd already know about railway ticket hoarding rackets which severely inconvenience genuine travellers, such as, where touts or travel agents who unscrupulously book advance reservation tickets in bulk to illegally resell them at a higher price later.

While ticket hoarding makes genuine travellers unable to book a ticket, it also causes losses to the railways when the touts cancel tickets after a long time when they do not find enough buyers for their hoarded tickets, which may cause empty reserved births in trains which would've otherwise been fully booked.

Hoarding and reselling of Indian Railways tickets is illegal. Both the sale and purchase of tickets, which was booked on a personal User ID, is an offence under section 143 of the Railways Act, 1989 (this is mentioned in each ticket you book on the IRCTC official website www.irctc.co.in). Using a personal User ID on IRCTC, you can buy tickets only for yourself and the number of people that you're allowed to book in a ticket.

While the Railways Protection Force (RPF), from time to time and across the country, keeps raiding and arresting touts and agents who indulge in ticket hording and reselling rackets, [2][3] this issue still persists, with even some licensed IRCTC agents being found involved in such rackets.[4]

With this reduction of Advanced Reservation Period, the railways expects that a 60-day booking window may help reduce chances of ticket hoarding and making more tickets available for genuine passengers.[1]

References

1. To promote genuine passengers and minimize rising no show trend, Indian Railways cuts down Advance Reservation Period from current 120 days to 60 days w.e.f. 01.11.2024 - Ministry of Railways, Posted On: 17 OCT 2024 6:25PM by PIB Delhi. Retrieved on 17 October 2024.
2. Central Railway’s RPF intensifies campaign against touts; 317 held from April to October - Times Of India. Nov 12, 2023, 10:28 IST. Retrieved on 17 October 2024.
3. Train tickets worth over 4L seized in one yr - Times Of India. Jan 29, 2024, 08:34 IST. Retrieved on 17 October 2024.
4. 50% of arrested touts are licensed agents of IRCTC - Ahmedabad Mirror. May 04, 2023 06:00 AM, UPDATED: May 05, 2023 02:28 AM. Retrieved on 17 October 2024.