Indian Railways' PRS services to be suspended between Nov 14-21; details inside

In a bid to revert back in a phased manner to the pre-covid-19 levels of service, the Indian Railways on Sunday announced that its Passenger Reservation System (PRS) will be shut down during the lean business hours of the night for the next 7 days. The  PRS will be shut from the intervening night of 14 and 15-Nov to the night of 20 and 21-Nov starting at 23:30 hrs and ending at 0530 hrs. During these 6 hours (from 23:30 to 05:30 hrs) period, no PRS Services (ticket Reservation, current booking, cancellation, enquiry services etc) will be available, as per the statement issued by the Indian Railways.

The statement further informed, "Except for the PRS services, all other enquiry services including 139 services will continue uninterrupted." 

Why is the step being taken?

The step is being taken by the Indian Railways to enable the upgradation of system data. "Since a huge amount of past (old train numbers) and current passenger booking data are to be updated in all Mail/ Express trains, this is being planned in a series of carefully calibrated steps and implemented during night hours in order to minimize the impact on ticketing services," read the statement issued by the Indian Railways.

Image: PTI/Representative image