Website Review: KSRTC

As more and more Indians get online mainly to take advantage of e-commerce services on the Internet, websites should take responsibility of ensuring that the services they offer are accessible, secure and user-friendly. In my opinion, there should be a national body that  should conduct periodic reviews to certify that sites collecting personally identifiable data or financial details (like credit or debit card info) are accountable for its proper use and meet basic standards. Enforcement of such basic rules is essential as many Indian commercial websites are hardly concerned about their consumers, many of whom can be Internet newbies and gullible.

The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation, a state-owned road transportation company offers online ticketing service for the buses it runs through the website www.ksrtc.in

The site is managed by Radiant Info which proudly claims on its website -
"Our clients include over 50 of the Fortune 500 global corporations.
•India’s first & largest Bus Passenger Reservation System
•Our solutions Issued over 116 Million Bus Seats & Selling Maximum Number of Bus Tickets per day"

The site (which caters to many in India's Silicon Valley) has numerous deficiencies:

• The site doesn't work in Chrome (tested in version 49, not tested in other non-IE browsers). There is no notice alerting users that it doesn't work on popular browsers so this has to be figured by the users through trial and error. Thankfully, they is a separate clunky mobile website that can be used on the desktop as well - http://m.ksrtc.in/
• The webmaster is aware that emails sent to users with Gmail accounts will land in the Spam folder. The maintainer is aware but cannot do anything about this problem.
• Website doesn't use HTTPS/SSL

Desktop version of website doesn't work in Chrome, so try the mobile version in non-IE browsers

Though this is not really related to the website, it has to be mentioned that KSRTC follows a discretionary policy whose fairness is debatable -

"Senior Citizen concession is applicable for residents of Karnataka State only. Residents of other states are not entitled for Senior Citizen concession. Passengers travelling with Senior Citizen concession need to produce any one of the following Original ID proof at the time of journey - Senior citizen identity card issued by KSRTC, Identity card issued by the Physically Challenged and Senior Citizens Welfare Directorate, Driving Licence, Voter ID and Passport, issued by the concerned authority of State of Karnataka."