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:
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.