dear amar, here is my letter sent to IRCTC and their reply to AICB:
To,
The Director
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd.,
B 148, 11th Floor, Statesman House, Barakhamba Road
New Delhi-110001
Subject: Denial of Internet ticketing facility to blind persons
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing on behalf of the visually impaired community of the country.
Your Railway Ticketing website www.irctc.co.in has now become totally
inaccessible to use for the millions of blind persons in the country.
It may be noted that with persistent advocacy and favourable court orders In
the court of CCPD vide Case No. 88/1101/13-14 dated 06/12/2013, Bhawani
Shankar Verma VS IRCTC we had been able to get the changes implemented in
the earlier IRCTC website. In particular OTP based verification was
specially introduced as an alternative to the graphical CAPTCHA. Even though
the website was not fully compliant to the International or National Web
Accessibility Guidelines, it was usable by digitally literate blind persons
including myself. You may be aware that even totally blind persons can use
the computer and internet independently using Screen Reading software
(Talking software like NVDA, Jaws). However, despite having this ability
blind persons cannot use the websites which are designed in violation of
standard practices and accessibility guidelines.
You have recently put in place a totally new website for internet ticket
booking. This website is unfortunately totally inaccessible for blind
persons and also those disabled persons who cannot use the computer mouse.
The OTP verification feature put in place by you is of no use now. The blind
persons are not able to even reach to the login form.
We have received complaints to this effect from many blind persons from the
country. I have also personally verified the issues with the website.
We urge you to immediately get the website tested and retrofitted for
accessibility. It must be made compliant to the Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines version 2.0. We can assist in this process if you so desire.
You will appreciate that blind persons like other citizens have a right to
use the railways and therefore should be capable of booking tickets online.
The Ministry of Social Justice has in fact provided Online Rail Reservation
Concession Cards in collaboration with railways for this purpose. But now
with the change in the reservation website, these Cards are also of no use.
Please take up this matter urgently and for the moment restore previous
version of the website. You may get the new interface tested and corrected
simultaneously. Any change in this kind of website should be done only after
disability accessibility audit since it is used by persons with different
capabilities and disabilities all over the country.
I am sorry to say that if urgent action is not taken on this matter, we will
be forced to escalate this matter to the Government and Judiciary.
Thanking you,
(Bhawani Shankar Verma)
Behind Bombay ricemill, Millpara,
Durg, CG 491001
Ph:9827157594.
REPLY FROM IRCTC:
INDIAN RAILWAY CATERING AND TOURISM CORPORATION LTD. (A Govt. of India
Enterprise-Mini Ratna)
"CIN.U7489913L1999G01101707" : info(crirctc.com Website : www.iretc.com
Date :
No.2014/IRCTC/ERTD/E-Tickets Date:26.07.2018
Dy. Chief Commissioner,
Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities
Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment
Government of India
New Delhi
Sub: Complaint dated 22.06.2018 of Mr. J.L Kaul, Secretary General, All
India Confederation of the Blind regarding inaccessible online portal
www.ircte.co.in
Ref: Your office letter No. 9990/1101/2018 dated 12.07.2018
With reference to above, the pointwise comments on the prayer raised by
complainant are as under:
It is not possible to revert to the old User Interface as New User
Interface has been designed to provide more and advanced features looking to
the present day trends in ecommerce online Travel Portals. New User
interface has been liked by a very large number of users.
However, to ensure that Blind persons are able to book tickets without any
problem and in the same manner as in the old User Interface, all the
functionalities like OTP in place of Captcha and keyboard navigation etc.
have been restored in New User Interface also which were temporarily not
available for some time due to migration issues. Now these functionalities
are working properly and are at par with old User Interface. In view of
above explanation, need of going back to old User Interface does not exist
New User Interface has many new functionalities like waitlist prediction
etc. which were not available in old User Interface and the need for the
same was felt for quite some time in past.
This is being ensured, however a temporary lapse occurred due to technical
issues. In future, additional care will be taken.
Web accessibility has been made available at par with old User Interface.
We are sure that many persons with visual impairment might have used the
new User Interface after changes have been rectified. If still any gap is
felt by the Confederation in old User Interface and New User Interface, the
same may be brought to our notice for further rectification.
-
(Sunil Kumar) GGM IT, IRCTC
Copy: r. J.L. Kaul, Secretary General, All India Confederation of Blind
Regd. & Corp. Office: 11th Floor, B-148, Statesman House, Baralthamba Road,
New Delhi-110 001. Tel. :011-23311263-64 Fax: 011-233112% IT Deptt. :
Internet Ticketing Center, IRCA Building. State Entry Road, New Delhi-110055
Tel. : 23345804. 23345805 Fax : 011-23741117
-----Original Message-----
From: Amar Jain
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2018 9:49 AM
To: AccessIndia: a list for discussing accessibility and issues concerning
the disabled.
Subject: Re: [AI] IRCTC became inaccessible
Wasn’t Turab helping with this? Call me on 9892622230 if nobody helps.
Regards,
Amar Jain
Sent from my iPhone
On 24-Sep-2018, at 7:23 AM, sazid shaik <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear friends,
As yesterday I asked the list members who can draft a letter the
issues facing by our blind persons do not know wether that mail hits
this list or not for the same once again i am writing this mail.
please respond as early as possible. As our GM is coming on 1st
october.
thanks and regards,
sazid
On 9/13/18, Yogesh Chhabra <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear friends as IRCTC became inaccessible so I have posted a tweet to
Piyush Goyal and Railway ministry and other concerned Ministry the
ministry
of Electronics and information technology and its Minister Ravi Shankar
Prasad. here I would like to see your replies on that we eat so that more
and more efforts can be made on this issue. Below I am posting a link of
my
tweet
Check out @yogesh4040’s Tweet:
https://twitter.com/yogesh4040/status/1040280727768641537?s=09
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