The Ministry of Railways said that the waitlist is a provision which acts as a buffer and mitigates the issue related to demand and availability.
Some media reports recently suggested that the railways would do away entirely with the concept of a waitlist in ticket booking by 2024. The wrong information was shared after the Ministry of Railways released its draft National Rail Plan.
After the media reports created confusion among the railway travellers, the Ministry of Railways issued a clarification. It provided a fact check that the media reports were wrong in suggesting that the waitlist provision will be entirely gone by 2024 and only confirmed tickets will be available from then.
The waitlist is a provision offered by the Railways for booking train tickets in India and allows passengers to be on the waitlist if a berth is not immediately available.
The Railways said that it was putting in concerted efforts to increase the capacity of the trains so as to reduce the possibility of passengers on the waitlist for berths in the trains. It emphasised that the provision was not being cancelled.
The ministry said in its statement, "Railways would like to explain and clarify that efforts are being made to increase the capacity to make trains available on demand. This would reduce the possibility of passengers getting waitlisted. [The] Waitlist is a provision that remains whenever the demand for travellers in a given train is more than [the] number of berths or seats available."
"The provision is not being done away. "Waitlist" is a provision which act[s] as a buffer to mitigate the fluctuations in demand and availability," it further went on to say.
The Railways has brought forth its draft National Rail Plan for infrastructural capacity enhancement and planning strategies to increase its modal share, the ministry said in a press release earlier.
One of its priority areas is to create capacity ahead of demand by 2030, which in turn would cater to growth in demand right up to 2050. This would further increase the modal share of the Railways, it stated in the release.
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