Railways moving towards a digitized and cashless economy
Government of India encourages people to move towards a Cashless Economy. This can be achieved by use of debit, credit cards, electronic payment gateway systems such Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) and Real Time Gross settlement (RTGS) in India.
The advantages to citizens of a country in a Cashless Economy are:
- Risk of loss of Cash while carrying is avoided
- Facilitate exact payment and reduce transaction costs
- Convenience in payment and management of utility bills, purchases and other financial transactions.
- It helps to authenticate financial transactions and maintain proper record facilitating better tax compliance and increasing tax base.
- Digital payments indirectly reduces expenditure by reducing need for printing of currency notes and its transportation.
- Electronic transactions helps in curbing corruption and black money flow, thereby helping in economic growth of the country
- Lesser use of cash prevents money laundering and better tax compliance
- Increased tax base would result in greater revenue for public welfare activities
- Indian Railways offers cashless ticketing options to its customers through internet ticketing on IRCTC website for booking reserved tickets. More than 58% of the train accommodation is reserved through e-ticketing. IRCTC also provides option for purchasing Season Tickets for suburban train services on Western and Central Railway. Facility for purchasing unreserved tickets through mobile phones is available at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Secunderabad. Further Automatic Ticket Vending Machines dispensing unreserved tickets using smart cards are provided at over 1000 locations over CR, ER, ECoR, NR, NER, NWR, SR, SCR, SER, SECR, SWR, WR and WCR. The smart card can be purchased from nominated counters at the station.
Indian Railways seeks your cooperation and support in helping the Government and the nation in creating a cashless digital economy.
Leave a Reply