Buying an Indian train ticket online - I concede defeat

I concede defeat.

I have been trying to purchase an Indian train ticket online for the past month. I am a non-Indian, live outside of India and do not possess an Indian mobile phone number. To supposedly prevent fraud, as of the beginning of 2012, everybody needs to register with the government-run Indian Railways (IRCTC) before being able to buy a ticket online directly through the IRCTC site, or through a private agency such as cleartrip.com or makemytrip.com. IRCTC, Cleartrip and Makemytrip make the process sound easy.....just pick a user id, enter personal details such as name, date of birth, address, mobile number and viola.........a six digit email password is sent to your email address, and a separate SMS OTP (one-time password) is sent to your mobile number, thus enabling your IRCTC account to be activated and allow the purchase of train tickets online. The problem is for foreigners who do not possess an Indian mobile number. No other number will do; it must be an Indian number. To get around this hurdle, after one receives the email password, he/she must write an e-letter to care@irctc with an attached, scanned passport copy, and a request that the SMS OPT be sent to one's email address in lieu of the non-existent Indian mobile number. To receive the SMS OTP by email takes 2-3 weeks, if you are lucky, All this is easy enough, it just takes time. I did all of it, finally got the SMS OTP sent to my email, went to the IRCTC site, entered my user ID, my password and the SMS OTP and viola........I had an active IRCTC account. Next thing I did was try to book a train on IRCTC's site, but found to my dismay, that IRCTC does not accept foreign issued VISA or MASTER. So, I thought, ok, I'll book my ticket through cleartrip, which I know accepts foreign issue VISA and MASTER because I have bought from them in the past using these cards. I went to cleartrip, picked the train and date, then was told in order to purchase the ticket I needed to synchronize my cleartrip and IRCTC accounts. There were two options: 1) those without an IRCTC account; and 2) those already with an IRCTC account, such as myself. I clicked on the second option, filled in the requested information. To be sure I got the information correct, I simultaneously opened my IRCTC and copied it onto the cleartrip site verbatim. When finished I pressed "submit" and to my surprise I got a message that a new password would be sent to my email address. I opened my email address and found a new 6-digit password and a message that an SMS OTP would be sent to my mobile number. In other words, I was going to have to start all over again. I wrote to both cleartrip and IRCTC asking why I could't link my IRCTC with cleartrip accounts using my existing IRCTC user ID and password. Sofar, no intelligent, logical answer has come from either. I sent another scanned copy of my passport along with a request for another SMS OTP I've been waiting for 2 1/2 weeks for the second SMS OTP.

Only an Indian could have devised such a sloppy, shoddy registration procedure.......sloppy and shoddy like the whole country. What a banana republic...!!! Nothing there functions well, even by the standards of the most backward, hot and steamy banana republics. To accept only an Indian mobile number and no other is not an oversight, it is plain sloppiness and stupidity. If it were a question of money, IRCTC could charge a small service fee included in the price of the ticket to cover the cost of sending the SMS OTP to a mobile outside of India. The Indian government talks about bringing India into the top-10 tier of touristed nations. It will never get there. India gets around 5.5 million foreign tourists per year, placing it around 50 among touristed nations.. Malaysia (pop.26 million) gets around 23 million foreign tourists annually, placing at #9. Most foreign travelers to Malaysia get a 90-day free VOA (visa on arrival), it's easy to book AirAsia tickets online; you can pay with a credit card issued from anywhere in the world. Malaysia is an example of a country that is taking advantage of IT to modernize and move into the 21st century.

India is still a backward backwater. I thought I was going to be able to arrive in India by air, check one night into a hotel and next day hop on an AC train whose ticket I had bought online in advance. Now it's looking like I will have to buy a train ticket the old fashioned way after I arrive / go down to the train station, fill out a paper form, stand in queue with a thousand pushing, shoving, crazed buffaloes trying to get ahead of everybody else, waiting for an hour only to be told there are no confirmed seats left but I can be placed # 257 on the waiting list. I'm flying into Cochin, there is no tourist quota from there.

India Shining.............what a laugh................