When can I book a Tatkal ticket?

As we all know, Tatkal booking has become extremely difficult these days especially after new update to Tatkal scheme conditions.
According Indian Railways IRCTC:  “Tatkal E-ticket can be booked for selected trains one day in advance excluding the date of journey from the train originating station. It can be booked on the opening day from 10:00 AM onwards. e .g. if train is to depart from originating station on 2nd August, Tatkal Booking will Commence at 10:00 AM on 1st August.”

The problem is that at 10:00 AM all the IRCTC servers get jammed with a number of customers trying to book a ticket. Even to login to the IRCTC reservation system is a challenge at this time. If you manage to login, than being successful in making a reservation is a question of quick filling of the passenger detail form.

Well this is when Autofill tool comes handy.
To use it you need to visit an IRCTC website in advance – anytime, say in the evening outside of rush hours. Just make a test booking with a single purpose of getting to the passenger details page. Once you get there, you fill all your detail you intend to use later for the Tatkal ticket. Use the Autofill tool and later (at 10:00 am) use it again for super fast completion of booking. The tool will then automatically fill all the details required in just one click, so you do not waste your valuable time by typing in those fields.

Here is an easy step by step guide on how to use Autofill.

1. Fill all your details
2. Click the “I´m feeling lucky button”
3. New blue button “Magic Autofill” appears
4. Drag this “Magic Autofill” button in your bookmarks
5. Wait until 8:00am for TATKAL ticket reservation
6. Do your desired train search, when on PASSENGER detail screen just click your “Magic Autofill” bookmark to instantly fill all fields in the form
7. Proceed to payment at the IRCTC payment gate
8. Good luck

The IRCTC reservation website experiences traffic jam every day at 10:00 am and can get very slow during Tatkal booking, so be patient and don´t double click or click the backspace because this would log you off. In case you get a“Service Unavailable” message, just refresh the page. Hopefully IRCTC reservation system will upgrade its hardware so it can handle peak hours traffic.
Autofill tool can definitely help you make a Tatkal reservation because when on the reservation page it is a matter of seconds to finalize a reservation.