The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation’s (IRCTC) website and mobile app, widely used for online railway ticket booking, suffered a major outage on Friday, disrupting services for thousands of passengers just days ahead of Diwali.
Thousands are reporting IRCTC issues on Downdetector
According to the outage monitoring platform Downdetector, more than 6,000 users have reported problems accessing the service or completing bookings. Many passengers have complained on social media that the website either does not load or crashes in the middle of the ticketing process.
As of Friday afternoon, the IRCTC site remained inaccessible and was showing error messages to most users trying to log in or search for trains. The mobile app has also been reported to be unresponsive for several users.
The timing of the IRCTC outage raises concerns ahead of Diwali
According to Downdetector, 40 percent of users report issues with the website, 37 percent with the app, and 14 percent with ticketing. The outage peaked after 10:00 IST this morning. A website tracking the outage highlighted Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Nagpur, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and other cities affected due to the IRCTC outage.
The disruption comes at a critical time when millions of travelers are planning to travel home for Diwali, sparking widespread online complaints and fears of delayed or failed bookings. IRCTC has not yet issued an official statement regarding the cause of the outage or the expected time to restore the service.
IRCTC users are experiencing frustration online
User X, @SachinSharma64 tweeted, “During Tatkal time IRCTC site was down due to maintenance, even though tatkal booking time for agents changed, site is still running at slow speed, you have to try too hard but it’s getting sadder @AshwiniVaishnaw @RailwaySeva @RailCTMinicial @IRCTCoffIndia.”
Another X user Raunak Mandal wrote, “What’s wrong with @IRCTCofficial at Tatkal time? Payments not working yesterday. Website itself not working today. Worst possible service. What is @RailMinIndia @AshwiniVaishnaw doing? Only promoting Swadeshi app based outside US?”
X user Bhabesh Pradhan also expressed his disappointment, “I was planning to go home by train for Diwali but when I opened IRCTC website to book tatkal ticket the website crashed and now I won’t be able to go home. Thank you @IRCTCofficial @RailMinIndia @AshwiniVaishnaw.”
