[smdz]

This is a case of 'BUREAUCRATS STIFLING INNOVATION' and this is how it often looks like. He could have gone through legal channels to approve his app and would not be able to find approvals even after being able to afford those financially.

Fair access is not provided by the official website. When one clicks "Book" and then suddenly get an Internal Server Error in network logs (while UI shows in-progress icon) or gets logged out - where is Fair Access? If Railways gave 10 Rs for each such failure, they will go bankrupt within 2 hours. First-come-first-serve does not mean fair access when they can't fix their technical problems.

And this guy charged money only after the cost of the servers was high. To give a context the alleged amount between 2016 and 2020 he earned in 4 years is in the range of 27k-30kUSD. That is as per Railways. It is likely to be inflated. Pretty sure he was running into losses.

However I doubt he is totally innocent. Most developers would know this app would be illegal. Or may be he is just too naive - hard to say that since he is an IITian. The railways will probably find out each ticket booked, heavily penalize each such booking, add huge interest to that till date and make the total amount sound like a huge scam. Adventures with Indian bureaucracy will cost him big unless he manages to heavily PR himself as a victim.

[inapis]

> Fair access is not provided by the official website. When one clicks "Book" and then suddenly get an Internal Server Error in network logs (while UI shows in-progress icon) or gets logged out - where is Fair Access? If Railways gave 10 Rs for each such failure, they will go bankrupt within 2 hours. First-come-first-serve does not mean fair access when they can't fix their technical problems.

I am not sure if you know the history of IRCTC and why it is slow (at times. Things have vastly improved in the last decade). People have asked this many a times and their explanation does make some sense, that if IRCTC is super fast and efficient, then people with cash to spare/with computers and good internet access will hog all the tickets, denying people in rural areas a fair opportunity to purchase tickets. That is still probably true in 2020, because a good chunk of Indians in rural areas either do not have good internet connectivity, lack digital means of payment or are simply flummoxed by the online process.

From your perspective, IRCTC is not fair access because the servers slow down but from the govt perspective, fair access is not limited to only IRCTC users. There might be an argument that railways has a low capacity overall and that there is a long way to go for efficiency improvements etc but given my experience over last 12 years, the experience has improved drastically. Wait times have gone down considerably on a lot of trains, you no longer have to plan your travel 6 months in advance, you can buy tatkal tickets without paying scalpers etc. In 2018 I could even book tickets (from home) on a train which had already departed from its source station (my departure point was halfway between the origin and destination) and people around me did not believe that this was possible.

[mcherm]

> their explanation does make some sense, that if IRCTC is super fast and efficient, then people with cash to spare/with computers and good internet access will hog all the tickets, denying people in rural areas a fair opportunity to purchase tickets.

If I understand correctly (and I might not) that sounds utterly absurd to me.

It sounds like you are saying "the official website is badly buggy and slow, but that's fair because some people in rural areas don't have good internet connections". I don't understand how a buggy and slow website helps those users! I would completely understand having a bug-free and fast website that reserved a certain proportion of the tickets for rural users or even for those with poor internet connections, but that doesn't sound like what you are describing.

> Wait times have gone down considerably on a lot of trains, you no longer have to plan your travel 6 months in advance, you can buy tatkal tickets without paying scalpers etc.

That certainly sounds good.

[inapis]

IRCTC is infrequently buggy (no more than an average website). They might not have optimised for poor connections and thats where most people's buggy experience is.

It is generally fast except between 10am-12pm every day (i.e. when the tatkal systems open) and that is what frustrates most people. When called out on these issues, IRCTC has consistently refused to add capacity to deal with the demand between 10am-12pm. You are correct that this could be solved by using quotas and reservations but they haven't done that. My only guess is that it is for political/bureaucratic reasons. It's easier to blame capacity issues than tell the reality.

>reserved a certain proportion of the tickets for rural users

This already happens. There are quotas of different kinds.

P.S. You know what? You are actually right. There's no technical reason for this to be the way it is. They are using that explanation as a cover for a political or legal problem or by occam's razor, they probably have a fixed budget (and not allowed to use on-demand services like AWS) and the govt won't approve the budget necessary to solve the capacity issues between 10am-12pm.

[sriku]

I believe this is the right explanation .. and I also agree that the experience has been readily getting better .. both the trains themselves and the ticketing system.

[C1sc0cat]

How do you mean "hog" all the tickets just make them non transferable if they are already not.

[inapis]

Tickets are non-transferable but bribery is still a thing, especially where demand far outstrips the supply.

Second, fake IDs are easy to make.

Third, it's impractical to enforce on the ground. Indian Railways is relatively open access compared to airlines. On average, trains begin boarding 15-30 mins prior to departure and have a very high number of passengers. With an avg of 16 coaches per rake, with each coach having 60-100 passengers, each train is carrying 960-1600 passengers. Some trains are even longer and most trains are over capacity because 2nd sitting has no reservation and people just pile on as far as there is room in the coach. It's pretty impractical to verify tickets of 1000+ people along with their ids. If you are departing out of a major city, its usual for TTEs to verify tickets after 2-3 hours (and after smaller stations have been crossed.)

Tickets have been hogged and scalped for a long time in India. I'm the first in my family who has no concept of bribing or buying scalped tickets or engaging an "agent." Everyone of the previous generation has plenty of stories about their experiences before. There is still a long way to go to improve access but I will also not deny that there has been a significant improvement compared to my parents experience.

[michaelt]

So the government-run rail services don't provide enough capacity, the government's employees are corrupt, the government-issued ID documents are easily faked, and the solution is... to make government's train website slow and unreliable?

[sriku]

I don't recall a single instance of corruption with the Indian railways at the consumer level in nearly 2 decades including an instance when I was fined for not purchasing a platform ticket which would've been an opportunity for the officer to ask for a bribe but he didn't.

I don't think I'd faking or bribery are big issues with ticketing any more. It is most likely equitable access between the "internet haves" and "the internet have nots".

[kranner]

> Fair access is not provided by the official website. When one clicks "Book" and then suddenly get an Internal Server Error in network logs (while UI shows in-progress icon) or gets logged out - where is Fair Access?

Inept as it is, the official website still intends to provides fair access. Just because it is buggy does not make it OK to circumvent it, especially when such circumvention only reduces access for users who are not using this developer's software.

I say this as someone who has used the IRCTC website to book tickets. Tatkal tickets especially are nightmarishly hard to book.

[smdz]

I am not saying it is OK to circumvent rules. BTW my access was revoked because they assumed I was using some automation - when I know I was not using any such thing. I am just good at computers and not even a fast typist. No response to my appeal - stopped using tatkal since then and fortunately never needed it after that.

[vijaybritto]

> hard to say that since he is an IITian

Sorry that's not a measurement of any quality.