Champaran HumSafar Express : इन अजनबी सी राहों में, जो तू मेरा हमसफ़र हो जाये, बीत जाए पल भर में ये वक़्त, और हसीन सफ़र हो जाये. - Piyush Singh

The reason for the addons/extensions is very simple. The Indian Railways official site has explicitly and aggressively blocked all access to seat/pnr/related info by this site. You cannot access seat availability/PNR info directly, not because of poor design, but because the official site has completely blocked access to seat availability and PNR info. In fact, at various times, whenever our visitors have complained of PNR access being unavailable here, whereas it was available elsewhere, each and everyone of those instances was directly attributable to an explicit and aggressive blocking of information. This website is unable to do anything under such circumstances.
The reasons for this may be best known to them. But the purpose and goals of this website are completely different...
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from that of the official site. People check information through this site for various other value added purposes like PNR analysis, route discussions, news, trip diary, atlas, ... most of the information within this website is independently sourced and has nothing to do with the official site. Seat Availability is shown here, not as any competition, but people to refer to this information in a different configuration permitting easy pasting and discussions.
Now, if the official website feels insecure and threatened, and has chosen the approach of blocking, our visitors/members/bloggers may take up the issue with the official site. This site can do nothing about it.
These measures may or may not be related with the government's recent statements about Facebook, Twitter and the internet per se.
All of these are outside the purview or control of this site. Please note that this is only a clarification statement that our bloggers may not take their anger out on this website for lack of seat availability info or having to download apps. Please understand that we are unable to do anything about it. These are unilateral decisions taken by a third party based on their own priorities.
Most importantly, please note that this website has no intention of making our bloggers suffer by making them download apps, or intruding on their privacy. You have 2 alternatives. Either download apps which are continuous under improvement when and if they become available. On the other hand, as per the desires of the official site, you may abandon this website permanently and satisfy your information needs within the official site.
Thanks for understanding.