IRCTC updates Tatkal booking rules starting July, know here

Indian Railways has announced several changes to further improve its ticket booking system, which have already come into effect from July 1, 2025. These include new rules for Tatkal ticket booking, preparation of charts first for waitlisted passengers and upgrade of the Passenger Reservation System (PRS). Recently, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav reviewed these reforms and said that it is necessary to make the ticket booking system smart, transparent and user-friendly. During this, he said that the purpose of these new rules is to provide convenience and comfort to the passengers.

Rules changes for Tatkal tickets from July 1

In the same sequence, from July 1, 2025, only verified users will be able to book tickets through the IRCTC website or app for Tatkal ticket booking. For this, users are required to verify their IRCTC account with Aadhaar. Apart from this, OTP verification on Aadhaar-linked mobile number will also be made mandatory for Tatkal booking from the month of July itself. This step has been taken to prevent black marketing and misuse of Tatkal tickets. Railways believes that this will make it easier for the right passengers to get tickets at the last moment. The Railway Minister has instructed the officials to further expand the verification process of Tatkal booking.

Relief for waiting passengers 

Railways have also changed the time for preparing the reservation chart to reduce the problems of waitlisted passengers. Currently, the chart is prepared 4 hours before the departure of the train, but now it will be prepared 8 hours before. The chart of trains whose departure is before 2 pm will be ready at 9 pm on the previous day. This will make it easier for passengers with waitlisted or RAC tickets to prepare for their journey. This change will be implemented gradually so that passengers do not face any problems.

New PRS system by December 2025

Apart from this, the Passenger Reservation System (PRS) of Railways will be fully upgraded by December 2025. The Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) is working on this project. The new PRS system will be able to handle 10 times more load than the existing system. Currently, the system can book 32,000 tickets per minute, but the new system will have the capacity to book more than 1.5 lakh tickets per minute. Also, the capacity for ticket-related inquiries will increase from 4 lakh to 40 lakh per minute.