The initial excitement at having broken possibly the biggest touting scam in the railways, has given way to a familiar sense of despondency among officials from different departments which worked together to bust the racket.
After the initial arrests, the confiscation of automation software, the freezing of tickets and the scanning of scores of call data records to find out insider links, the case has just 'gone into a coma', as one official put it.
As reported by dna in a series of articles, the vigilance and commercial departments and Railway Protection Force unit of the Central Railway, had arrested 12 touts who were using an automation software to corner tickets at the speed of almost 128 tickets per minute on the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website.
As per subsequent technical investigations, a chink in the 'captcha' process was allowing these touts to corner the tickets. A total of 4,782 tickets worth Rs2 crore were seized and frozen as part of the scam. Many of these tickets have, however, been de-frozen as per court orders so as to not inconvenience passengers.
However, a senior railway official alleges that from there on, it all went downhill. He explained, "The IRCTC as well as the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) which developed the IRCTC online system, has not taken any major step to upgrade the security aspects of the online system. The touts are all out on bail and a good opportunity to completely overhaul the IRCTC online booking system has been lost."
Another major letdown has been the slow movement in the investigations into the alleged involvement of a senior IRCTC official who was apparently in touch with the arrested touts even after the scam broke out on September 24. Officials however, refuted this saying that the case was moving at the requisite pace and soon, the CPUs and laptops seized from the touts would be handed over to forensic science experts for analysis.
The official added, "This was a case that could have given the railways a big boost in its fight against ticket touting using automation software and other means which put bonafide passengers at a huge disadvantage. Hopefully in the days to come, the IRCTC and CRIS will work together to strengthen its online booking system."
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