Indian Railways has extended the facility to pay for train tickets through UPI/BHIM to railway counters. The facility of payment through UPI/BHIM for booking of e-tickets online was already implemented on the IRCTC website. Bharat Interface for Money or BHIM app is developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), based on the Unified Payment Interface (UPI). The BHIM app is inter-operable with other Unified Payment Interface (UPI) applications and bank accounts. In less than a year, the number of daily transactions through BHIM app has reached 2.8 lakh.

Train Ticket Booking Through BHIM/UPI: 10 Things To Know

The facility to book train tickets at railway counters though the BHIM app will be implemented from December 1, 2017.

The Railways said this facility will be available for booking of reserved tickets from Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counters and season tickets (monthly/quarterly) from Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) counters.

There would be no transaction charges for a period of three months from passengers for the new train ticket booking facility.

Passengers will be able to receive information on the fare to be paid at the railway counters by sharing their travel details..

If a customer opts to pay through UPI/BHIM, the counter person will select UPI as payment option and request for passenger’s Virtual Payment Address (VPA).

The railway counter person will enter the Virtual Payment Address (VPA) to initiate the transaction in the terminal.

The passenger will receive a payment request on the mobile to confirm payment. The passenger will be required to accept the payment request and the passenger’s linked account will be debited the fare amount.

Once the transaction is successful and verified on the system, the counter person will print the ticket and hand it to the passenger.

Besides promoting the government’s initiative of increasing digital/cashless transaction, the new payment mechanism at railway counters will offer additional payment option to customers availing railway services. There is no need to share bank account or credit/debit card number.

The BHIM app is easy to use and supports payment through multiple banks on a real time basis.

Railway Board Chairman Ashwani Lohani on Thursday said train accidents had decreased by 40 per cent in the country and over 1.25 lakh people were being appointed to the railways’ safety department.

The number of accidents between April 1 and November 30 this year had gone down by 40 per cent in comparison to the corresponding period in 2016, he told reporters in Dhanbad.

“The safety wing is being strengthened. The maintenance work of the tracks is going on on a war footing and new tracks are being laid,” Lohani said, while acknowledging that there were certain cases of train accidents recently.

A large number of posts were lying vacant in the railways and the process was on to fill up these posts, particularly those associated with the safety of the trains and tracks, he added.

“In the safety category, 1.25 lakh group C and group D staff will be appointed on a priority basis,” Mr Lohani said.

To a question, the railway board chairman said officials of the Dhanbad division of the East Central Railway and the Bharat Coking Coal Limited would attend a meeting in Delhi on December 8 to decide on the revival of the closed DhanbadChandrapura route.

The 34-km-long route was declared closed on June 15 on the recommendation of the directorate general of mines safety because of underground mine fire.

The DVC operates a thermal power station at Chandrapura.

Mr Lohani said the board had short and long-term projects for an alternative to the Dhanbad-Chandrapura route, for which a proposal would be put up in the next budget.