Incentives on digital purchase of Railway tickets

Incentives on digital purchase of Railway tickets through IRCTC website, on counters by credit/debit cards, through mobile phones etc. Discounts and waiver of service charge 

Train tickets can be booked at the ticket counters through cash or through credit/debit cards, Unified Payments Interface (UPI)/ Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) modes of payment. Tickets can also be booked through cash from various Railway agents like Yatri Ticket Suvidha Kendra (YTSK), Jan Sadharan Ticket Booking Sevak (JTBS), Rail Travel Service Agents (RTSA) etc. For booking of tickets through Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website, all modes of cashless payment are already available, viz. net banking, through credit/debit cards, cash cards, e-wallets and UPI/BHIM.

Incentives on digital purchase of Railway tickets

In order to further promote cashless transactions in purchase of Railway tickets, following initiatives have also been undertaken by the Government:-

1. For booking of tickets online through IRCTC website, service charge earlier levied has been withdrawn up to 31.03.2018.

2. In case of booking of tickets across the counters through credit/debit cards, the service charge levied earlier has been withdrawn.

3. Booking of tickets through mobile phone has been introduced wherein payment can be made through credit/debit cards, net banking, e-wallets etc.

4. Facility of renewal of season tickets through IRCTC website has been provided for Mumbai suburban train services where the payment is made through electronic mode.

5. Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs) have been introduced to facilitate sale of unreserved tickets, platform tickets and renewal of season tickets which have provision of payment through smart cards.

6. Go-India Smart card scheme has been launched as a pilot project for booking of reserved and unreserved tickets at the counters ( specified smart card counters) on New Delhi-Mumbai and New Delhi-Howrah sectors.

7. 0.5% discount is given on total fare of the season ticket if the payment is made through digital means.

During the period from April, 2017 to November, 2017, approximately 65% of total reserved tickets were booked through cashless modes of payment. 

Source: PIB