Indian Railways plans linking of these documents for booking tickets on IRCTC

Indian Railways in a bid to weed out the menace of touts may soon ask users booking train tickets online to link identity documents such as Aadhaar, PAN and Passport to login details of passengers on the ticket booking IRCTC website.

Railway Protection Force (RPF) Director-General Arun Kumar on Friday in an interaction with the media persons said that the national transporter is working on a plan to link the identity documents with IRCTC. He said that earlier action against touts was based on human intelligence which had little or no impact on the ground. "We are trying to plug it. The future is that eventually we have to link login of ticketing with some identity card either PAN or Aadhaar or any other proof, the number of which the passenger can (use to) login so that we can end touting," Kumar said.

"This is our future plan. We have to create a network first. We have almost done our work with Aadhaar authorities and we are doing the same with other identity cards. The moment the system is in place we will start using it," he said during the briefing on on the work done by the RPF over the last two years,as quoted by news agency PTI.

Kumar said that action against touts was started in October-November 2019, and against illegal software from December in the same year. Till May 2021, 14,257 touts have been arrested, he said and added that so far, tickets worth ₹28.34 crore have been seized.

The director general (DG) also said the Rail Suraksha app has been developed for passengers to register safety-related complaints with the Government Railway Police and the RPF while they are travelling.

"We are devising a surveillance and response mechanism for CCTV coverage to 6,049 stations and all passenger train coaches," he said.

*With inputs from agencies