3 min readJaipurJun 12, 2026 05:20 AM IST
First published on: Jun 12, 2026 at 05:17 AM IST
After receiving complaints from students in Jaipur, Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday announced a new IRCTC website by July 15.
The minister made the announcement during an interaction with students at Malaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT), Jaipur. In a video that has since gone viral, one of the students is seen asking the minister, “Sir, please solve the problem of the IRCTC captcha…”
Subsequently, the minister dialled a departmental official, saying, “All the students have demanded that there should be a new IRCTC website,” before asking the official if it is possible to create one within 30 days. He then tells the students that a new IRCTC website will be launched by July 15, as they start thanking him and begin clapping.
Apart from captcha, users have often flagged website slowdowns, crashes and outages during peak hours; session expiring abruptly and unexpected logouts; payment failures after seat selection; login issues and repeated error messages; OTP-related problems; high-traffic bottlenecks during tatkal bookings; and concerns over bots, agents and unfair access with the IRCTC website.
Just last year, the government had said that it had deactivated 2.5 crore user IDs.
Advanced quantum computing lab
At the event, Vaishnaw, who is also the Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, announced the establishment of an ‘advanced quantum computing and quantum communications lab’ at MNIT. The lab will be established under the Electronics and ICT Academic Project of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and will focus on building indigenous capabilities in quantum key distribution (QKD), quantum computing simulation, and quantum sensing hardware components.
Addressing students and faculty members, Vaishnaw said that while the current technological wave is being driven by AI, the next major technological wave will be led by quantum technology.
He also said that the work to be undertaken under this project will be of significant importance for the country. The lab will also undertake research in QKD, which officials said is important from a national security perspective.
A “makers lab” was also inaugurated by Vaishnaw and Rajasthan’s Minister of State for Energy (Independent Charge), Heeralal Nagar, with the Union minister also announcing the establishment of an AI lab at MNIT.
The Union minister also announced that students of MNIT Jaipur will get access to Lam Research’s “Semiverse” platform. It is a digital twin-based semiconductor fabrication and training ecosystem. Through Semiverse, students can now study semiconductor chip structures in 3D, understand chip manufacturing processes, and simulate fabrication steps in a virtual environment.
Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw 
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