Buying Indian Railways unreserved tickets in queues? Do so online pan India from November 1

Now, you don't have to wait in long queues buy tickets at Indian Railways stations as its UTS mobile app for buying unreserved tickets online will be available nationwide from November 1, according to a senior official.

The scheme which started four years ago failed to catch on among passengers. However, it gained popularity in Mumbai, as a large number of people travel by local trains there. After Mumbai, the scheme was started in Delhi-Palwal and in Chennai. Railways has already implemented the scheme in 15 of its zones with the Northeast Frontier Railway and West Central Railway being the remaining two zones. The scheme is also open for those who want to buy tickets for travelling long distance.

"We have been trying to engage people to encourage them to use the UTS mobile application more and more. The numbers are growing and we are hopeful that once passengers understand the benefits of this app, they will buy their tickets online. With certain zones not being a part of the app, a lot of passengers were unable to use it. Any station intersecting these zones was left out of the app. From November 1, it will be available across India," a senior railways official said.

In the last four years, there were around 45 lakh registered users of this app with around 87,000 tickets being bought per day on it on average, he said.

A passengers needs to be around 25-30 metres away from the station to avail the application and is allowed to book only four tickets at a time through it.

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On the app, a registered user can not just buy tickets, but also platform tickets and monthly passes. The Indian Railways earns around Rs 45 lakh per day through the online sale of such unreserved tickets, the official said.