Ashwini Vaishnaw says over half IRCTC booking attempts were bots
India
Turns out, more than half of all online train ticket requests on IRCTC from January to June 2026 were made by bots, not real people.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw shared that about 8.88 billion out of 15.38 billion booking attempts were flagged as automated.
June saw the biggest spike, with nearly two-thirds of all requests coming from bots.
Railways adds Tatkal Aadhaar OTP checks
To tackle the bot problem and fake bookings, Indian Railways rolled out Aadhaar OTP checks for Tatkal tickets and upgraded their cybersecurity with anti-bot tools and round-the-clock monitoring.
They've also taken legal action against over 22,000 touts and deactivated more than 30 million suspicious user accounts.