In a first, the Indian Railways earned more than half its reserved ticket revenues on January 1 through cashless means, a Railway Board member has said.
“Around 51 per cent of our earnings from railway tickets came through the cashless route on January 1, which is a record for the Indian Railways,” Railway Member, Traffic, Mohd. Jamshed told The Hindu .
Before the demonetisation on November 8, the Railways earned only around 38 per cent of all ticket revenues through the Indian Rail Catering and Tourism Corporation’s website or plastic cards, he said. On November 8, it earned ₹49 crore through cashless means. On January 1, ₹69 crore out of a total ticketing revenue of ₹133 crore came through cashless transactions, Mr. Jamshed said. “A large number of passengers have migrated to the e-ticketing system after demonetisation. On December 29, the earnings from e-ticket booking stood at ₹73 crore and from cash transactions at ticketing counters at ₹34 crore. Around 67 per cent of our reserved passengers are now booking tickets online compared to 58 per cent earlier.”
Integrated mobile app
He said cashless transactions at counters for unreserved ticket also rose to 7.9 per cent at the end of December from one per cent before the demonetisation.
The government had installed 2,000 card swiping machines at 13,000 railway counters across the country till January 1. It would soon launch an integrated mobile application giving passengers three dozen payment options.
Mr. Jamshed said the Railways had extended the service charge waiver on e-ticket booking till March 31. The Centre had earlier announced waiver of the service charge of ₹20 on sleeper class and ₹40 on AC class e-tickets booked from November 23 to December 31.
