Railways to open e-Ticketing to foreign debit/credit card holders

Railways Minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu announced during the Railway Budget 2016 that the e-ticketing facility will be open to foreign debit and credit cards for foreign tourists and NRIs in the next 3 months.

He also announced that the ‘Vikalp’ (Alternative Train Accommodation System) scheme introduced in October 2015 will be expanded to provide choice of accommodation in specific trains to wait-listed passengers.

Rail Minister introduced 1,780 Automatic Ticket Vending Machines, Mobile Apps and GoIndia smartcard. GoIndia smartcard will enable cashless purchase of UTS and PRS tickets. Mobile Apps introduced for purchasing of unreserved and platform tickets.

Capacity of e-ticketing system has been enhanced from 2,000 tickets per minute to 7,200 tickets per minute and will support 1,20,000 concurrent users as against only 40,000 earlier.

The Ministry of Railways announced a slew of measures in the Railway Budget 2016 on February 25 for domestic, foreign and NRI tourists.