Rail ministry sources admitted that the additional tatkal seats have been taken out of the berths available under normal reservation and this has reduced the chances for passengers to buy cheaper tickets in advance.

In 2005-06, the daily average number of berths in tatkal quota was 43,000.

The next year, Yadav increased it to 57,000 and in 2007-08 he raised it further to 98,000. Little wonder, tatkal revenue for the Railways almost doubled from Rs 200 crore (RS 2 billion) in 2006-07 to Rs 396 crore (Rs 3.96 billion) in 2007-08.

The number at the end of the current financial year is expected to be still higher.

There's more to it. Tatkal charges are supposed to come down during the slack season (February-March and August).

But trains that see high purchase of such tickets -- 80 per cent and above of the quota -- do not have a slack season and full tatkal charges are levied through the year.

The tatkal quota in such trains has been kept higher than others.

Image: A passenger looks out of a compartment of an outbound train at a Mumbai railway station. | Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images