Indian railway is the worlds one of the largest railway network, feel proud for it. But this proud goes to vain when i think about the real picture of railway reservation, when i go to book tatkal ticket, when i booked ticket for tatkal it feels like i won the battle.
Instead of having lots of facilities available by indian rail we can't deny with the flaws in the system, specially in reservation system...
First talk about ONLINE Reservation System, railway became so strict for Agents so normal ppl can get reservation easily, otherwise there was an offline software, in which they entered all details previously and when reservation starts in the morning they need to just connect that software to site and all traffic got blocked and first their reservation were done. At that time normal person waiting for his turn, some how he/she reached to payment page, where website showing current status as available, and when he/she returned back from payment which seat must allocate to him/her, showing his status in waiting.. that was the flaw at that time, but now condition a bit improved ie. the access of agents removed from online reservation between 8-10 in the morning, online 2 ticket can be booked from one user id.. But still there are problems in it.. website cannot handle heavy traffic specially in morning to book tatkal ticket, its takes too much time to reach one page to another page, causes session expire. any how you reached to payment page, till then all seats for tatkal got filled, there must be improvement in service that if someone reached to payment page then reservation must be done..
Now talk about WINDOW Reservation System, Now agents got less chance in Online reservation system so they moved to Window Reservation System. The person sitting at counter of reservation system are involved in it. I recently visited for counter ticket, reservation timing starts from 8 AM sharp, but the counter open at 8:18 AM, Person was there on counter were doing something but the counter is not open for general person, what were they supposed to do, you can easily guess, i need not to tell you.
In these strict condition if i go to agent and tell him i need reservation of tomorrow or day after tomorrow, he will assure u that you will definitely get a ticket.
So interference of agent in Indian Railway Reservation System never going to End until Railway willing to stop it. The reason behind this is that Only railway know where are the loop holes in their system and how they can take advantage of it.
