Rail passengers can henceforth book more tickets online: they can book 12 tickets from a single user account if the account is not linked with Aadhaar and as much as 24 if linked with Aadhaar.

Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) now allows people to book six tickets a month if the account is not linked to Aadhar and 12 if linked with Aadhaar.

Each ticket form permits booking of six passengers apart from 2 children below the age of five. Children below 5 are not issued tickets; their names are on the roster for ccounting purposes.

“To facilitate passengers, Indian Railways has decided to increase the limit of booking maximum 6 tickets in a month to 12 tickets by a user ID which is not Aadhaar linked and the limit of booking maximum 12 tickets in a month to 24 tickets by a user ID which is Aadhaar linked and that one of the passengers in the ticket to be booked is verifiable through Aadhaar,” the railway ministry said in a statement.

Officials said this will be helpful for frequent travellers as well as those using the same account to book tickets for family members. Meanwhile, the net profit of the IRCTC for the quarter ended March was at Rs 213.78 crore, up 105.99 per cent compared with Rs 103.78 crore in the same quarter last year.

The train ticket booking platform's revenue from operations stood at Rs 690.96 crore, up 103.95 per cent from Rs 338.78 crore in the year-ago quarter, according to the results released last week.

Revenue from internet ticketing was at Rs 292.82 crore in the fourth quarter compared with Rs 212.01 crore in the year-ago period. The company's catering revenue jumped nearly four-fold to Rs 266.19 crore in Q4 from Rs 67.38 crore in the corresponding period last year.

Revenue from Rail Neer — its packaged drinking water business — was at Rs 51.88 crore, up from Rs 27.80 crore, the data showed.