Soon, book your railway tickets through UPI at booking counters

In order to promote digital payments, Indian Railways has announced to integrate UPI service at all its ticket reservation counters across the country. Ticket buyers can use BHIM app to book tickets.

Railway Board Member(Traffic) Mohammad Jamshed said, "We'll now be accepting payments through BHIM app and UPI. No additional service charge would be levied on digital payments." At present, passengers are allowed to pay their ticket fare through cash and credit and debit cards. He further said, "Now a passenger does not have to carry his/her credit or debit card as they will be able to book tickets through BHIM app through a mobile phone."

Mohammad Jamshed explained, "While purchasing train tickets at counters, you need to provide your VPA address to the ticket clerk. As soon as the clerk keys your VPA in the reservation portal, you will get an alert to your registered mobile phone for approval. After you approve the payment, the money will get deducted from your bank account. The booking clerk also will receive an alert in his system. The entire payment process will be over in seconds. You never have to give your bank account number at any point in time."

The UPI service will power multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application and provide several banking features including money transfer. On the procedure involved in making payments through BHIM app, the railway said passengers who have signed up for UPI payments with their banks will get a 20-digit alphanumeric Virtual Payment Address (VPA).

Jamshed added, "Around 3-5 crore people in the reserved category have migrated towards digital transactions through e-ticketing. At the counters, about 30 percent passengers buy reserved tickets. We have installed card swapping machines for debit and credit cards." He further said the railways is working on a Bharat QR code option for booking tickets.