The Railway reservation system in India has many flaws, but we should also look into the fact that managing a country of 1.25 billion with a large railway network is not the most easiest task.
So I ll be listing some flaws as well as some positive points about Indian Railways and how you have to deal with the flaws.
1) The online reservation system is a very good feature, because standing in Queues all the time and jostling away wasting your time is not the best thing to do, so the IRCTC website does help a great deal to book your tickets.
2) Tatkal: This facility is a great boon, if you consider the cases of emergency, but a lot of people do use it in a wrongful manner and the entry of agents into the reservation system is nothing less then a cancer for the whole system. The Site goes down at exactly 8:01 a.m and you have about 0.1% chance of getting a ticket, that too if your lucky.
On the other hand if you switch to an agent, first of all he would promise you a CONFIRMED ticket in the very first meeting. That in itself is a proof that there is a huge racket going on somewhere.
3)PNR status: The status enquiry feature is a lot better than before, when you had to dial your PNR number over and over again to no avail. The website does give your status fairly easily.
ADVICES to Railways:
1) Try to pull out the Agent culture from the root, the system would be lot better and appreciatable.
2) Try to allow people to choose their own seats when making reservations Online, similar to what happens in BookMyShow.
Advices to Passengers:
1) Try to get a ticket 2 months in advance, in case of an emergency prefer an airline ticket paying a bit more rather than paying it to an agent.