Tatkal is a service offered by IRCTC (IRCTC – Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation) for people who want instant ticket for their destinations. Tatkal booking begins one day in advance before the day of journey for example, lets say you want to start your journey from 3rd of any month then you have to book your ticket in Tatkal on 1st of that month i.e one day before in advance.
There are two kinds of booking i.e Normal Taktak as well as premium tatkal. Premium tatkal is much more expensive as well it has higher cancellation charges. Tatkal booking timings and online booking can be find out from the IRCTC government website www.irctc.gov.in other than this you can also take help one of the agents. IRCTC also provide convenience to cancellation of any ticket if in case one decide to change his plan by giving very small amount of cancellation charges.
I have explained all cancellation charges below one by one. So this post is very valuable for those who have no idea of tatkal service of Indian Railway. For the sake of simplicity i have added few tables of important timings. You can scroll down to check them only by one.
Tatkal Booking Timings 2017
Tatkal Booking Timings has changed from last year, it is now limited to one hour only from 10 AM to 11 AM earlier it was tatkal booking facility was available for 2 hours in 2015. IRCTC is already a huge e-commerce website as in just 1 hour, the tatkal ticket booking reaches to 50,000 approximately. So the visitors needs to do hurry while booking and he might have to wait in this 1 hour period because in this period, website runs slow due to the enormous visitors in queue for book their ticket.
| Booking Type | Timings |
|---|---|
| AC class | 10 AM |
| Non-AC class | 11 AM |
AC class– Visitors wants to do AC class journey can book ticket in tatkal in period of 10 AM to 11 AM, they have to remember that booking should be made one day in advance before the journey date.
Non-AC class- Tatkal booking timings for Non-AC class users starts form 11 AM.
Tatkal booking can be made offline (at the station counter) as well as online ( www.irctc.gov.in).
Tatkal Booking Timings for Agents
Visitors who don’t want to face any problem while booking their tickets and are not aware of the ticket booking process can take help of the agents. However, they take extra charges for booking your ticket. These are legal IRCTC agents who has license to sell the IRCTC ticket because booking IRCTC ticket without license is offense. Their booking timings are different.
| Type of Booking | Timings |
|---|---|
| General | 8 AM |
| AC Class | 10.30 AM |
| Non-AC class | 11.30 AM |
If you don’t have any agent around you then you can also find agents from a android app. This app will search for agent and will suggest suitable agents for booking. You can download app from here.
Charges of Booking Tatkal Ticket( without Agent)
As i have told you earlier that there are some extra charges for Tatkal ticket booking. But you still don’t have any info of exact amount of charges they deduct for booking. The charges are also depend on the amount of distance travel. Here is the list of charges :
No refund is made to the customer in case of cancellation in Tatkal ticket. However, there is conditional cancellation in which some charges will be deducted from the refund amount as per Railway rules.
How to Book Tatkal Ticket Online?
Certainly there should be some knowledge of how to book tatkal ticket online as it is frustrated sometimes for new users and for non technical persons. Following are the short steps to follow to book ticket online:
- First step is to log into your IRCTC account preferably by 09:50 AM according to IRCTC clock.
- In second step, click on to “Plan My Travel” Page.
- Then fill all your journey details and choose the quota as Tatkal.
- When the IRCTC clock show 10 AM, Just submit your detail by proceeding next.
Note- Ensure that you have your identity proof like Driving license, Adhar card with you before booking Tatkal ticket.
Benefits Tatkal Ticket Booking
Key Features of Tatkal Ticket Booking will help you understand all the necessary information and would remove your confusion.
- Tatkal Ticket booking begins at 10 AM in advance the day before the journey.
- For AC class, Booking begins at 10 AM.
- And for Non-AC class, Booking begins at 11 AM.
- Tickets vacant are sold on Tatkal Booking, not complete train is defined to be as booked.
- No refund will be provided except in case of Contingent Cancellation.
- Cancellation and refund of ticket is allowed on waiting list.
- One can book only 4 tickets from one account and one IP address. You can use other account and IP to book more tatkal tickets.
- No concession is allowed in Tatkal Booking
- Tatkal booking is not allowed on Executive class and in First AC.
Cancellation Charges of Tatkal
The refund of cancellation depends on your booking status. So there are two different scenario of cancellation
- For Confirmed Ticket: If your ticket is already confirmed then you will get zero refund. In order words the cancellation charges will be 100% of your booking amount.
- For Waiting List Ticket: If your ticket is on waiting list then cancellation charge will be applied per normal railway rule. You will get fund refund (only transaction fee will be charged) however you need to cancel your ticket 30 minutes before departure of the train.
Usually IRCTC make changes everytime in Tatkal Booking Timings so i will update you about the timings if made to change. There are chances that IRCTC may soon changes the timing because the users traffic is increasing day by day. If you have any question then comment below
