IRCTC suffers outage amid festival rush, passengers unable to book tickets

The annual scramble for Diwali train tickets turned into chaos for millions of passengers as the IRCTC website and mobile application suffered a major outage, rendering users unable to book or cancel tickets online. This technical failure, occurring right before the peak travel season, has stranded countless travelers and triggered massive anxiety, particularly among those seeking to secure last-minute reservations for the festive rush.

The outage was reported to have occurred on Wednesday, impacting all core online services. Passengers attempting to log in were met with error messages, while those trying to complete a transaction found the payment gateway frozen. Given that the Diwali period sees one of the highest volumes of train travel in the country, the timing of the crash could not have been worse, leading to huge inconvenience and a surge in frustration across social media platforms.

The disruption is particularly problematic for Tatkal bookings, which are essential for many families planning emergency or last-minute travel. The window for these high-demand tickets is narrow, and a system failure during this period means guaranteed travel disruption for those who depend on it to reach home for the holidays. The immediate inability to process payments or search for seat availability effectively ground all new online reservations to a halt.