Train Passenger Finds Out His Seats Don’t Exist After Booking From IRCTC, Here’s What TTE Said

With the facility to book tickets online, most people now opt to book their train and flight tickets using the easy method. For booking train tickets the most used website is IRCTC. Though the online ticket booking process through the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation is smooth and hassle-free. Passengers do face technical issues every now and then.

Train passenger allotted seats that do not exist

Recently, on Monday a strange incident occurred with a passenger from Lucknow. The passenger booked the tickets online to find out later that the seats allotted to him by IRCTC don’t exist.

This bizarre incident happened on 14204 Lucknow-Varanasi Intercity Express. A passenger named Vijay Shukla was allotted seat numbers 74 and 75 in the C1 coach when he booked his train tickets online. But to his surprise when he boarded the train with his brother, they found out that the coach had only 73 seats. Seat numbers 74 and 75 were nonexistent.

Here is what the passenger, Vijay Shukla, whose allotted seats by IRCTC couldn’t be found has to say about the peculiar situation

When Vijay spoke to the travelling ticket examiner (TTE) about his troublesome situation, the TTE said,

“A travelling ticket examiner (TTE) told us that such instances are common and that he has complained about the goof-up in ticket bookings to the department concerned and higher officials. But no action was taken so far to resolve the tech glitch”

Shukla also added that the TTE informed him that there were 75 seats in another coach but the coach allotted to them had only 73 seats. The TTE went on to say,

“As the server shows 75 seats in the coach, 75 people are allotted seats there.

The TTE also said that he has been facing the brunt of passengers who shout and hurl abuses at him.

Did Shukla and his brother finally get a seat on the train?

Yes, Vijay and his brother were allotted different seats afterward.

Station director of the Charbagh railway station, Ashish Singh also commented on the tech glitch, he said,

“This problem was brought to our attention 15 days ago. We have relayed the information to the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), responsible for maintaining a majority of key information systems of Indian Railways. If the problem persists, we will look into it.”

Glitches on the IRCTC website and application are not uncommon, the services are often impacted due to technical issues. The booking confirmations are delayed sometimes as the website often works at a slow rate during the night.

Customers also face issues with the payment interface when they pay their ticket booking price through net banking or wallets.

Have you ever faced any problems while booking your train tickets through IRCTC? Let us know in the comments.