IRCTC down: Website and app crash ahead of Diwali, thousands unable to book tickets

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website and mobile application, widely used for online railway ticket bookings, suffered a major outage on Friday, disrupting services for thousands of passengers just days before Diwali.

Thousands report issues with IRCTC on Downdetector

According to outage-tracking platform Downdetector, more than 6,000 users reported problems accessing the service or completing bookings. Many travellers took to social media to complain that the website was either not loading or crashing midway through the ticketing process.

As of Friday afternoon, the IRCTC website remained inaccessible, displaying error messages for most users attempting to log in or search for trains. The mobile app was also reported to be unresponsive for several users.

IRCTC outage timing raises concerns ahead of Diwali

As per the Downdetector, 40 per cent of users report issues with the website, 37 per cent with the app, and 14 per cent with ticketing. The outage peaked after 10:00 AM IST this morning. The outage tracking website highlighted Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Nagpur, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, and other majorly affected cities due to the IRCTC Outage.

The disruption comes at a critical time as millions of passengers plan journeys home for Diwali, prompting widespread online complaints and anxiety over delayed or failed bookings. IRCTC has yet to issue an official statement regarding the cause of the outage or the expected time for service restoration.

IRCTC users take frustration online

An X user, @SachinSharma64, tweeted, "IRCTC site down for maintenance at the time of Tatkal, even after changing time for tatkal booking for agents the site runs at the same low speed, u have to struggle way too hard, this but its just getting more pathetic @AshwiniVaishnaw @RailwaySeva @RailMinIndia @IRCTCofficial."

Another X user, Raunak Mandal, wrote, "What is wrong with @IRCTCofficial during Tatkal hours? Yesterday, payments were not working. Today the website itself is down. Worst possible service. What is @RailMinIndia @AshwiniVaishnaw doing? Only Promoting Swadeshi Apps based out of US?"

X user Bhabesh Pradhan also expressed his disappointment, "I was planning to go home via train on Diwali but when I opened IRCTC website to book tatkal ticket the website went down and now I won't be able to go home. Thank you @IRCTCofficial @RailMinIndia @AshwiniVaishnaw."