As Railways resumed partial services under lockdown 3.0, the booking of tickets – which commenced on 11 May as announced by the Rail Ministry – faced disruption as the website crashed for two hours.
IRCTC Website Crashes for 2 Hours
The booking of tickets was pushed to 6:00 pm from 4:00 pm as the website of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) crashed, NDTV reported.
"Data pertaining to special trains is being fed in the IRCTC website. Train ticket bookings will be available in a short while. Please wait. Inconvenience is regretted," the Ministry of Railway had tweeted.
Reservations Made for 82,000 Passengers, Over Rs 16 Crore Collected
Around 45,500 PNRs were generated and reservations were made for over 82,000 passengers for special trains, Railways officials said according to PTI and ANI.
The total collection is reportedly over Rs 16 crore.
Delhi Howrah Tickets Fully Booked in 10 Minutes
Trains on certain routes were more sought after than others, like the ones plying between Delhi and Howrah.
Despite the delay in booking, all AC-1 and AC-3 tickets for the Howrah-New Delhi train were sold out within the first 10 minutes, PTI reported. The train is scheduled to leave the Howrah Railway station on 12 May at 5:05 pm.
Within 3 Hours, Tickets for Mumbai Central-New Delhi Sold Out
All tickets on the New Delhi-Mumbai Central route have been booked upto 18 May.
The train is set to depart from Mumbai Central railway station at 5.30 pm on 12 May and will be operating every day, Hindustan Times reported.
The train will have 20 coaches and will halt at Surat, Vadodara, Ratlam and Kota railway stations on the way.
Earlier, the government announced special trains will run from the New Delhi Station to Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.
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