New Delhi: In a move expected to make more berths available in trains during festive season, the Indian Railways has decided to reduce the window time for advance booking of tickets to 60 days from 120 days, effective from November 1, 2024.
In order to meet the festive season travel demand, the Railways had earlier announced to operate 6,000 special trains across the country.
The Indian Railways in a Commercial circular dated October 16, said, "With effect from 01.11.2024, the Advance Reservation Period (ARP) will be of 60 days (excluding the day of journey) and bookings will be done accordingly. However, all the bookings done upto 31.10.2024 under the ARP of 120 days will remain intact."
“The cancellations of the booking made beyond the ARP of 60 days will however, be permitted,” the circular stated.
The circular however clarified that there will be no change in the case of limits of 365 days for foreign tourist.
Moreover, reservation rules in case of certain day time express trains like Taj Express, Gomti Express etc will not change, the circular stated.
The advance reservation period was initially 60 days till April 1, 2015. The government then extended the booking period to 120 days.
At that time, the Railways had said that advancing the reservation period to 120 days would discourage the touts as it involves more cancellation charges.
However, many had then argued that 120-day advance period was only aimed at getting some extra revenue for the cash-strapped railways by way of interest for the extra 60 days as well as higher number of cancellations.