Tatkal ticket booking is an initiative taken by Indian Railways to book ticket for short journeys. This booking can be done online as well as offline with the help of travel agents. During festive season or vacations a lot of discrepancies occur while booking Tatkal ticket, due to which public faces a lot of difficulties so in order to avoid these problems government has done some changes in rules for Tatkal ticket booking in 2018.
According to the new rules of 2018, Tatkal tickets can be booked in a particular time frame i.e. 10:00 am for AC class and 11:00 am for Non AC class a day in advance of the journey. IRCTC is the online portal where tickets can be booked easily without standing in long queues at station. Only two Tatkal ticket can be books by a single user id. Agents are not allowed to book tickets in a window of 8:00-8:30 am, 10:00-10:30 am and 11:00-11:30 am.
Tatkal ticket charges are as follows:
Class of travel
Minimum Tatkal charges in Rs.
Maximum Tatkal charges in Rs.
Minimum distance for charge in km
Second sitting
10
15
100
Sleeper
100
200
500
AC Chair Car
125
225
250
AC 3 Tier
300
400
500
AC 2 Tier
400
500
500
Executive
400
500
250
Government has brought ious changes in the policy, the new Tatkal booking rule of 2018 does not offer any refund on cancellation of confirmed Tatkal ticket. Refund of confirmed Tatkal ticket is offered in following conditions:
The train is delayed for more than three hours from the originating position of the journey. Train has been diverted to different route and passenger not willing to take that route. If passenger is provided with the lower birth and does not want to travel. In case of non-attachment of coach in which Tatkal accommodation has been earmarked and the passenger has not been provided accommodation in the same class.In case of RAC/wait listed Tatkal tickets, refund is offered after deducting clerkage fee as per the new rules of Tatkal ticket booking in 2018. However, if your Tatkal ticket is on the waiting list or RAC and it gets confirmed before the making of the final passenger chart than you won’t be given any kind of refund in case of cancellation.