In a major clean-up of its online ticketing system, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has deactivated 3.03 crore suspicious user accounts in 2025 and introduced Aadhaar-linked rules for booking Tatkal and Advance Reservation Period (ARP) tickets, aiming to improve availability for genuine passengers.

Under the new norms, only Aadhaar-verified users can book tickets on the day ARP opens and during Tatkal hours — a move targeted at curbing agent-driven bulk bookings and automated bot usage that often-cornered tickets within seconds of release.