The Indian Railway Catering and Touring Corporation (IRCTC) has officially launched its revamped ticket booking website on July 15, 2025, delivering on Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's commitment to address long-standing user complaints. The new platform represents a significant upgrade from the current system, which processes around 32,000 ticket bookings per minute, to a capacity of more than 1.5 lakh bookings per minute. The enquiry handling capacity has also been dramatically increased from around 4 lakh to over 40 lakh enquiries per minute, reducing the chances of slowdowns during periods of heavy demand. As per Economic Times, this substantial increase in processing power addresses the primary concerns about website congestion and interruptions during peak booking hours, especially during Tatkal bookings.
The revamped IRCTC website introduces several new features designed to simplify the booking process and improve user experience. The platform now offers a fare calendar that allows users to compare ticket prices across different travel dates, enabling passengers to plan their journeys more effectively. Travellers can now select their preferred seats during the booking process, providing greater flexibility in ticket selection. The website supports multiple Indian languages, making it more accessible to users across the country. Additionally, services for Divyangjan passengers, students and patients will be integrated into a single platform, streamlining accessibility for different user categories. The new interface features a cleaner design with faster navigation and eliminates unnecessary CAPTCHA prompts, pop-ups and flashing graphics that often slow down the booking process.
While the portal is now live, the Ministry noted that the revamped website is currently being integrated with the Indian Railways' backend Passenger Reservation System (PRS). An official statement confirmed that "The revamped IRCTC website is currently being integrated with passenger reservation engine of Indian Railways," adding that the fully functional new IRCTC portal will be available in a few months. Since the Passenger Reservation engine is also being revamped in parallel, the fully functional new IRCTC portal will be available in the coming months. This backend overhaul represents a complex, massive undertaking as the four-decade-old system is being modernised while continuing to handle daily operations without disruption. The statement emphasized that "This required extensive work, because the system had to be operated throughout this journey of upgradation. We will launch the new Passenger Reservation engine very soon."
The Indian Railway Catering and Touring Corporation (IRCTC) has appointed Rajneesh Narain as its new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Key Managerial Personnel (KMP) with effect from July 14, 2026. Narain, who assumed charge as Director (Finance) at IRCTC on June 15, 2026, brings over three decades of experience in the coal sector. Before joining IRCTC, he served as Director (Finance) at Northern Coalfields (NCL) and previously headed the corporate accounts team at South Eastern Coalfields (SECL), a subsidiary of Coal India. During his tenure, he handled key functions including accounting, taxation, fund management, contract management, budgetary control, and business diversification. He also served as Chief Financial Officer of Chhattisgarh East Railway (CERL) and Chhattisgarh East West Railway (CEWRL), subsidiaries of SECL, for six years.
As part of the wider digital push, the RailOne app has reached a significant milestone, crossing 4 crore downloads to become the largest railway ticket-booking platform in the country. The app offers a unified experience, consolidating booking, cancellation, tracking, and complaint services into a single platform, with all railway services available at one stop in RailOne app.
