Now, pay for your rail tickets through BHIM and UPI

In a bid to promote digital payments, the Indian Railways on Thursday said it will bring UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payment system at all its ticket reservation counters across the country from Friday.

"We are going to roll out UPI-based payment system at all reservation counters across the country," Railway Board Member (Traffic) Mohammad Jamshed said here.

He said the system will currently be launched only for reserved tickets.

He said over 97 per cent of the tickets sold at Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counters daily are through cash and only two-three per cent of transactions at the reservation counters are through debit or credit cards.

According to railway officials, about 7.5 lakh tickets are booked daily. Five lakh tickets are booked at PRS counters.

"Now a passenger does not have to carry his credit/debit card, as they will be able to book it through BHIM app through a mobile phone," Jamshed said.

He said the Railways is working to develop Bharat QR code option for booking tickets "Once it's completed, passengers just need to scan the QR code to make payments," the official said.

The Railways earns around Rs 110 crore daily by selling reserved tickets -- Rs 80 crore from eticketing and Rs 30 crore from tickets sold at reservation counters.