Railway Passengers can also cancel PRS Ticket on IRCTC portal now!

Railway Passengers can also cancel PRS Ticket on IRCTC portal now!

Railway Passengers can also cancel PRS Ticket on IRCTC portal now! However, new rail ticket cancellation option yet to catch on. Though it is now possible to cancel railway tickets by just making a phone call or with a mouse click, not many passengers are aware of it.

New Delhi: The Indian Railways is working on a mega plan to tap the cash-less, electronic payment system. Around half of all passenger tickets currently sold are via the cash-less mode through Indian Railway Catering and Tourism (IRCTC). The new plan involves covering the remaining half of the volume of tickets sold through the reservation counters under the electronic net.

Passengers would soon be able to purchase tickets from railway reservation centres through the passenger reservation system (PRS) using electronic payments – credit cards, debit cards and pre-paid cards approved by the Reserve Bank of India as well as via point-of-sale machines by banks.

The implementation of the new plan, that will also bring the unreserved ticketing system (UTS) under the electronic net, is expected to reduce transaction time, increase ease of payment, and do away with the long queues at ticket counters.

“The plan will also cover freight transactions carried out by the Indian Railways. We are also looking at the possibility of engaging with digital wallets companies such as Paytm and others. We have three months to submit our recommendations,” said a senior official from the rail ministry.

The ministry has formed a high-level, six-member committee to come out with various digital payment options and areas where these can be used. The committee has been asked to assess the Railway’s preparedness to implement such a scheme and suggest other areas to be covered. “The terms of reference of the committee will also include suggesting modalities for cash-less sale of PRS and UTS tickets through all forms of electronic payments,” the rail ministry said in a recent order, reviewed by Business Standard.

Sources said the Railways had sent out a request for proposal (RFP) to make the payments system on its platform digital. “They have said that they want to make the most of digital transactions. They want to reduce queues at unreserved ticketing counters,” added a senior executive of a mobile wallet company.

Unreserved ticketing has a unique set of problems. “Whatever solution is given to the Railways for unreserved ticketing, it would need to have some elements of geo-fencing. It means that only when a person is within a certain perimeter of a railway station would he be able to use the mobile wallet to buy a ticket. Also one of the requirements is the Railways should get to decide from where a person can or cannot book a ticket,” added the executive.

Working with the Indian Railways would bring mobile wallets like Paytm, Freecharge and Oxigen Wallet closer to the biggest customer base in the country. “We are keen on working with them,” said Ankur Saxena, director and chief mentor, Oxigen Wallet. “We were the first wallet that was integrated with IRCTC way back in 2009. We are constantly in touch with the Railways on providing various digital payments solutions.”

Digitisation on the Cards

Passengers would be able to purchase tickets in railway reservation centres in a cash-less manner through all forms of electronic payments

A six-member committee has been tasked to assess specific requirements for implementation of the scheme. For mobile wallets, this is a big opportunity as it would bring them closer to the biggest customer base.

Railway Passengers can also cancel PRS Ticket on IRCTC portal now!

Indian railway extended the facility of online cancellation of Waitlisted and RAC tickets booked at Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counters through IRCTC website or through 139. The railways recently introduced a scheme for hassled passengers enabling them to cancel tickets instantly in case they can’t reach the counter in the stipulated time.

The facility introduced since 24th May enabled the passengers to get their refund even after scheduled departure of the train, if they cancelled the tickets through online within the prescribed time.

In the earlier system, passengers had to reach in person four hours before the departure of train to cancel tickets obtained through the passenger reservation system (PRS) counter.

The refund of fare across the PRS counter within the prescribed time limit shall be permissible only on surrendering of the original PRS counter tickets.

With the new system, passengers can use three methods to cancel the ticket – Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS), by texting a message to 139 or by logging onto the Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC) web page.

While cancelling the tickets through online, the passengers shall be asked to enter the one time password sent to their mobile. Hence passengers should provide their mobile number in the reservation form to make use of this facility in the event of cancellation, added the sources. Only those who have registered their mobile numbers while booking tickets will be able to cancel tickets using these methods. Otherwise, they will have to visit the counter to cancel them. When passengers use any one of the methods to cancel tickets, they get a one-time password (OTP) on their registered mobiles. Passengers can collect refunds from the PRS counter at the boarding point railway station by producing the OTP and the ticket.

To ease the passengers hassle in cancelling the tickets booked at PRS counters, Indian Railways introduced online cancellation facility only for ‘confirmed’ tickets through IRCTC and through 139. The facility has came as a relief for lakhs since they no longer need to rush to PRS counters before departure of the train. Passengers from smaller stations can get their refund during the first two hours of the opening of PRS counters on the next day whose scheduled departure of train between 6.00 pm and 6.00 am.

Reservation against cancellation (RAC) and waitlisted tickets can be cancelled half-an-hour before the departure of the train but confirmed tickets should be cancelled four hours before the departure of train.

Senior Divisional Commercial Manager (DCM), Bengaluru Division, N S Sridhar Murthy, said this new system has been introduced recently and it is yet to gain popularity because passengers are ignorant about the new facility.

This has come as a big relief for the passengers as they won’t have to run to the PRS booths moments before the scheduled departure of the trains-a passenger.

Source:RailNews