Be Alert While Feeding Data When Buying Rail Tickets Online

Indian railways , which is operating 65000 rail track routes serving 7500 railway stations, maintains a ticket reservation system through its computer network. Railway tickets are sold online by Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited, shortly referred as IRCTC, a BPO of Indian Railways.

IRCTC facilitates buying rail tickets online, for availing which you have to establish Computer facility and internet connection and have an activated net-banking or a valid credit card. You have to sign up with IRCTC providing a User ID and Password exclusive to your use.

Railway tickets are obtainable 90 days before the date of journey and for buying your rail tickets you have to sign in, select the departure and destination stations, date of travel and class of travel from the drop down menu appearing in the Plan your travel section of the IRCTC portal for booking rail tickets online .

Based on the data furnished by you, search process begins instantaneously and you can submit your request for your rail tickets after verifying the ticket offer it shows in a screen. You will also be required to furnish your mobile phone number and a verification code before you submit your request for railway tickets.

Next screen requires you to click the option for making payment which will provide you with a menu of

a.The payment gateway for credit cards andrnb.a list of Banks

through which you may choose to opt to make payment for your rail tickets and IRCTC charges.

You are then taken to the corresponding portal of either the bank or the credit card organization for you to authorize the payment. This will be an independent activity of furnishing details of your User ID and password, both for entering the bank account and for authorizing the transactions. Some banks, like ICICI require you to furnish authorization codes available only with their ATM cards supplied to you and you should be ready with that information as you start booking rail tickets online. Likewise, some credit card organisations such as Citibank require further authorisations for processing the payment, besides furnishing the card number, expiry date and the CVV number.

When the payment is authorized and processed, the IRCTC’s screen appears again confirming the rail tickets bought by you, which you can get printed.

Nowadays, you do not have to carry the hard copy of the ticket. IRCTC gives you a message in your mobile phone instantaneously when buying rail tickets online and also send you an eMail. It is enough if you show your message or the eMail from your smart phone to the Ticket examiner with your proof of identity for travel.