Goyal vows action after ‘tatkal’ rail tickets racket busted

If you are among those who have found it difficult or impossible to book urgent railway tickets because they are sold out within minutes of 'tatkal' bookings opening, the reason is now clear – it's a scam.

Railway minister Piyush Goyal has directed the IRCTC and the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) to strengthen cyber security in the wake of the ticketing scam unearthed by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

The CBI earlier this week arrested a software programmer of its anti-corruption division and a former employee of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) for allegedly operating illicit software that subverted the railways reservation system.

Officials told media on Wednesday yesterday that the manipulated system allowed agents to book hundreds of tatkal tickets at a single click of the mouse.

The CBI software programmer is alleged to be the brain behind the illicit software which allowed agents to book hundreds of tatkal tickets at a single click of the mouse, officials said on Wednesday.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested its assistant programmer Ajay Garg and his accomplice Anil Gupta for developing and distributing the software to agents for a price, agency spokesperson Abhishek Dayal said. Garg and Gupta have been remanded in five-day CBI custody by a court.

Besides Garg and Gupta, the agency has booked 13 others, including Garg's family members and travel agents.

Garg's parents, wife, sister, and brother-in-law were allegedly instrumental in making collections from travel agents using his software, it said.

The money from the travel agents who booked tickets using his system was collected in bitcoin and through hawala channels to avoid scrutiny, Dayal said, adding that 10 agents - seven from Jaunpur and three from Mumbai - have been identified in this connection so far.

The ticket bookings under Tatkal quota open at 10 am for AC class and 11 am for non-AC coaches for the trains departing the next day. Under the system, a fixed number of seats in each coach are sold at a premium by the railways to travellers who need tickets urgently.

A common complaint of passengers is that the tatkal quota gets full within minutes of the start of booking. Their bookings are either rejected or they get a wait-listed ticket, that too after paying the tatkal premium.

Some travel agents offer to provide confirmed tickets under the quota by charging a premium over and above Railways' prices.

The arrest of Garg and Gupta has exposed the alleged software trickery used by them to exploit the vulnerabilities of IRCTC ticket booking system.

Thirty-five-year-old software engineer Garg had joined the CBI in 2012 through a selection process and has been working as an assistant programmer. Earlier, he had served with IRCTC, which handles ticketing system of the railways, between 2007 and 2011.

The CBI has carried out searches at 14 locations in Delhi, Mumbai, and Jaunpur during which it recovered Rs89.42 lakh in cash, gold jewellery valued at Rs61.29 lakh, 15 laptops, 15 hard disks, 52 mobile phones, 24 SIM cards, 10 notebooks, six routers, four dongles and 19 pen drives, Dayal said.

Garg used a complex chain of Indian and foreign servers, online masking and cryptocurrency to facilitate his operations, the officials said, adding that his luck ran out after the agency received source information about his operations.