Booking unreserved tickets, especially for a suburban route, have always been a hassle for commuters. Unlike reserved tickets which can be booked via IRCTC website or mobile app, there was no ‘technology enabled’ provision for unreserved category and they had to endure long queues for booking the same.
Sensing the gap, Indian Railways has decided to launch a special application, which will cater to the needs of those commuters who are travelling unreserved or in a suburban train.
The best part is that there is no need for the passenger to carry a printout of the ticket as it’s a completely paperless provision. The passengers can show the softcopy of the booked ticket to the TTE while checking.
Season Tickets, which are quite popular among suburban commuters, can also be booked and recharged using this new application.
As per reports coming in, the app would be primarily available only on Google Playstore.
Edit: It seems Indian Railways had launched a Windows Phone version of this app earlier this year, and has been available for ticket booking on Windows phone [Link] Hat Tip: Ruhani
Payment via eWallet
Payment for such online unreserved tickets would be made via Indian Railway’s eWallet.
Once the app has been downloaded, the passenger will receive a unique reference number which would be used for creating a unique account on their eWallet platform. The user can then top-up this eWallet using debit or credit cards by visiting IRCTC website or even ticket counter.
It seems that Indian Railways have finally discovered the optimal usage of their eWallet, which was launched with much fanfare in 2013. However, our investigation last year revealed that only 32,000 users had registered themselves for this eWallet, and it was fast becoming a question of success and failure.
Vodafone’s M-Pesa had recently collaborated with Indian Railways for using their mobile wallets for making payments. It’s not yet clear whether M-Pesa can be used on this new application or not.
Launch Plans
To start with, this app would be introduced for passengers of Mumbai Suburban sector (local trains) this week, which would be gradually expanded to the whole country.
Another report suggests that Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu will launch this application for the busy Egmore-Tambaram suburban section in Chennai.
Few months back, Indian Railways had launched a dedicated application for registering complaints; with this app, there would be now three official applications from Indian Railways.
In case you are wondering about those, who doesn’t have a smart phone, but still wish to book tickets without visiting a ticket counter, then here are the complete steps of booking train tickets via SMS (only reserved tickets)
it is not paperless, we have to print ticket using ATVM at boarding station.
Its very nice app