Following the Centre’s communication, the Indian Railways has taken its first step towards a cashless and digital economy. Indian Railways now want to introduce the sale of season and long-distance travel railway tickets via credit and debit cards. Indian railways have asked several lenders including State Bank of India and ICICI Bank among others to provide around 15,000 Point of Sale (PoS) machines at the reservation counters by 31 December.
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Currently, around half of all rail tickets are sold via the cashless mode through Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC). Now the new plan involves covering the remaining half of the volume of tickets sold through the reservation counters under the electronic system.
Currently, Railways does not provide the POS machine service for debit and credit card payments at the ticket counters. Commuters can buy season tickets on the IRCTC’s website and payment can be made through direct debit card facility.
After the POS machines gets installed at the counters, passengers would be able to purchase tickets from railway reservation centres using electronic payments like credit cards, debit cards and pre-paid cards which are approved by the Reserve Bank of India as well as via POS machines by banks.
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At this point of time, commuters are using three different cards- one for railways, another for BEST and an additional one for the metro. From March commuters may have to buy another card if the monorail becomes operational.
Meanwhile, the railway counters will except the scrap Rs 500 note at the reservation counters for railway bookings and renew passes.
The Railways Ministry is also planning to go cashless for making payments to its vendors and contractors. A notification regarding the same would soon be issued by all zonal and divisional railways.
