New app gives ‘cash on delivery’ facility for train tickets

Wish to book a train ticket but do not want to use debit or credit card?

A solution is here, courtesy a group of former students of Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K).

The group has developed a new app and a website — bookmytrain.com — which will provide train reservation tickets with ‘pay on delivery’ facility.

The reservation seekers booking tickets via this app will get postpaid reservation tickets at their doorstep.

“The IRCTC has approved the site and signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for providing postpaid reservation ticket facility through the website,” claimed Nitish Jalan, an IIT alumnus and co-founder of the website.

In the first phase, the facility is being provided in over 600 cities across India, barring those in Jharkhand and Orissa.

The interested person will have to apply for seat reservation at least five days before the journey.

Apart from the fare, the passenger will have to pay the user charge of Rs 90 along with the service charge.

While the online reservation system through IRCTC is running successfully, passengers who do not have credit and debit cards find it difficult to avail the facility.

More so on various occasions, the online services remain disrupted due to snag in the server.

“Our website will try to solve both these problems and the passenger need not worry about paying through digital mode,” said Jalan, who hails from Ranchi and had passed B Tech in Mathematics from IIT-Kanpur in 2013.

He served for about two years in usual jobs before coming in contact with Anurag of Gurgaon who owned bookmytrain.com.

They duo formed a team and announced the venture two months back.

According to Jalan, over 9,000 people get their reservation done through their website every month.