But the railway officials are telling a lie. Let us ask for a meeting with 
their technical teem and demonstrate their lies in practicals.

-----Original Message-----
From: AccessIndia [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of 
bhawani shankar verma
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2018 10:11 AM
To: AccessIndia: a list for discussing accessibility and issues concerning the 
disabled. <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [AI] IRCTC became inaccessible

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
>>
>>
>>
>> Search for old postings at:
>> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
>>
>> To unsubscribe send a message to
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>> with the subject unsubscribe.
>>
>> To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, 
>> please visit the list home page at 
>> http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.or
>> g.in
>>
>>
>> Disclaimer:
>> 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking 
>> of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its 
>> veracity;
>>
>> 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the 
>> mails sent through this mailing list..
>>
>
>
>
>
> Search for old postings at:
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> Disclaimer:
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> of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its 
> veracity;
>
> 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the 
> mails sent through this mailing list..





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