Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation [IRCTC]

Sir, I am working in the Railways for the past 12 years and a frequent traveler to my native place Alleppey, Kerala state with my family consisting my wife and two daughter as and when necessity arises. Since I am a Railway servant, I have been provided with 3 sets of privilege passes and 4 sets of Privilege Ticket Order for my whole family which is found insufficient for my travel for my needs since I have been posted at Trichy area which is about 480 Km’s away from my native place.Apart from my travel schedule, I often tickets for my guests and relatives who visited residence. To fulfill the above needs I registered my name as a customer in IRTC’s portal and book tickets as and when required and making payment either by debit card or internet banking. As such on 20/04/2011, I logged in the IRCTC’s portal at about 08.02 hrs for booking of 2 tickets in T.No. 16865 Ex. Trichy to Ernakulam Jn. in SL class under Tatkal scheme. I processed all the data and made payment through the payment gateway of my SBI, Khajamalai Savings bank A/c No. [protected] for an amount of Rs. 554/- vide transaction ID No. ID-[protected] dated 20/04/2011 and the reference code of the bank for payment is TO TRANSFER INB IRCTC Railway tkt booking, 0333167812IG48210418 TRANSFER TO [protected] SBI I.R.C.T.C. COLLECT, 554. But my surprise, I found that my ticket has not been booked and shown remark as “Payment Not Received From Bank”. Then again I tried to book the tickets through internet and found that all the tickets booked within a fraction of seconds i.e. at about 08.30 hrs the whole seats have been sold out showing the status as W/L 20. When I felt that I have been left out, I send an e-mail to: [protected]@irctc.co.in date Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 8:31 AM stating all the difficulties I have been faced and requesting to generate the ticket or to refund the amount immediately. In return a message has been received from [protected]@irctc.co.in and appending the details as follows: date Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 9:08 AM subject Re: [Fwd: Non receipt of e-ticket (tatkal)] mailed-by irctc.co.in Important mainly because of the words in the message Dear Customer, We deeply regret for the inconvenience caused to you in this regard. As your payment status for transaction id [protected] was not communicated by the Payment gateway in time, the ticket booking did not materialize. After reconciliation if the amount is found debited, the same will be processed at Payment Gateway for refund. We would ensure that the refund is made at the earliest. In future you are requested to use the Refund status Tracking service Provided by the IRCTC. Select the link in the left panel under . on the plan my travel page after you log in to www.irctc.co.in giving your userid and password. In conjunction with above statement we would like to pass one information that if you face any problem in E-tickets like cancellation & Online **TDR** Filing then you have to send mail to [protected]@irctc.co.in from registered e-mail id and apart from these query **for booking related general queries like refund, ERS, online booking etc. **please send mail to [protected]@irctc.co.in. We hope from the next time you will follow the same. * Thanks & Regards, Shehnaz Bano [protected]@irctc.co.in www.irctc.co.in 011-[protected] In nut shell I have been left out from the online reservation for tatkal quota to favour the bulk booking agents or some other reasons, from where the concerned peoples in this system were benefited. Again in the evening of 20/04/2011, I booked two tickets in the same train as W/L 176 & 177 for a daily train runs an average distance of 480 Km, s from Trichy to Ernakulam. In normal course no Railway servant will purchase a journey ticket for travelling in Railways, I used to purchase tickets for my journey when my privileges are exhausted or not able to fulfill the required procedures in emergency. When I am facing such problems, even though had a little knowledge about the black marketing of reserved Rail tickets, then what will be the position of an “aam admi”. Hence I requested to those who are authorized to curb such mal practices or the agencies responsible to curb the same should be activated to ascertain the real truth behind the created failure in the system. Thanking you, G.Vijaya Kumar, [protected]@gmail.com, [protected]