Comment by pitdesi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pitdesi | Hacker News Reader

The more interesting and useful thing about this rant is that companies have come in and done something about this problem and started making money doing so. Historically you could avoid the lines at Indian railways by using offline travel agents who charged their commission. A few venture-backed* companies have brought that model into the 21st century - IRCTC sucks, so they put a pretty interface on it that doesn't suck and charge 10-20 rupees (25-50 US cents!) extra per booking:

http://www.cleartrip.com/trains, http://www.makemytrip.com/railways, http://www.yatra.com/trains.html

Solve a problem like the Indian Government (IRCTC is a government undertaking) like this and you'll have lots of takers for 10-20 rupees. They offer a better user interface, saved payment details, a consolidated place for air & rail bookings and better customer support.

*Cleartrip is funded by Kleiner Perkins, Ram Sriram, and Concur. MakeMyTrip by several top asian funds, and Yatra by Norwest Venture Partners and Intel Capital

You seem to imply that IRCTC had no role in the train ticket booking done by Cleartrip and others; that it was completely initiated and done by the private companies.

It isn't that "companies have come in and done something about this"; it was IRCTC who first published an API that enabled these companies to book tickets. Without the API, Cleartrip and others wouldn't have been able to book tickets.

The other point about a better user interface, well they just don't have a better UI. At least Cleartrip requires more info in the first step than IRCTC. The PNR status functionality in Cleartrip doesn't work most of the time. Filing TDR (a claim for refund) for tickets booked is much more complex in Cleartrip than in IRCTC.

The only problem with IRCTC right now is that it can't cope with the rush at 8 am tatkal and opening day bookings.

The funny thing is that another booking site was made (by the in-house CRIS) and that didn't work for more than a month.

But the dumb government has stopped them from providing full fledged service. These other sites cannot book "tatkal tickets" from 8:00 - 9:00 AM, after which there would be no useful tickets anyway. The least Indian Railways can do is to fully deregulate. So, right now IRCTC is monopoly and that explains why it is like it is.

8-9 Tatkal booking is not allowed in irctc also.

No it is. I just spent 1/2 hr logging in.Then the site crashed. Go figure...

Its not allowed only for Agents, as there have been past incidents when mass booking is done by agents and normal customers don't get any tickets.

... and it may interest some that Cleartrip has lispers in it.

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