With the advancing Cashless India Movement, India is in the process of becoming a complete digitised economy. While the Government is trying to embed cashless transactions in every sector possible, the Indian Railways has joined the initiative, establishing the option of using debit and credit cards for paying penalties or any other additional fares.
By adopting this new measure, Railways hopes to keep shady cash transactions in check and for providing a convenient payment option for passengers. This decision was taken in a railway board meeting held recently and the final call will be taken before January 15, 2018.
As per reports, ticket examiners will be given a tablet computer and a POS machine. If a TTE charges people for allotting berths, they can make such transactions using debit and credit cards. Reservation fare and supplementary charges can also be paid through the POS machine. There have been instances where passengers have no cash to pay the fine- in such scenarios, either passengers are let off or handed over to the police. But now, this situation is avoidable as TTEs can extract fines through cards. With tablet computers, TTEs will have the details of reservation and will also feed revenue details.
A number of meetings were organised in railways’ connection, cooperation and dialogue programme. Railway board chairman Ashwani Lohani told the officers to decide the target date for completion of various works undertaken by the ministry.
