Govt pushes for railway ticket booking via BHIM app

Key Highlights

• Passengers can book tickets and pay through BHIM app and UPI.
• The facility was implemented from December 1.
• No additional charges will be levied from passengers making payment at railway counters using UPI/BHIM for a period of three months.

The Indian railways has started accepting payment made through Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app, a mobile application developed by National Payments Corporation of India.

Payments made through Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and BHIM were announced by the government on November 30.

The payment facilities that were activated from the starting of December is now being promoted by the Ministry of Railways via e-mails.

“This facility is not chargeable for a period of three months and is safe to use as there is no need to share bank account or credit/debit card numbers,” an e-mail to a customer on Wednesday read.

While rolling out the scheme the government said the BHIM app facility will be available at a number of counters.

“This facility will be available for booking of reserved tickets from Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counters and booking of Season Tickets (MST and QST) from Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) counters,” Ministry of Railways said in a release dated November 30.

Further it added, “No additional charges will be levied from passengers making payment at railway counters using UPI/BHIM for a period of 3 months.”

The process of payment/booking via BHIM app was given as follows -

Counter person will obtain travel details from the customer and inform the fare to be paid.

If customers opts to pay through UPI/BHIM, the counter person will select UPI as payment option and request for passenger's Virtual Payment Address (VPA)

Counter person will enter the Virtual Payment Address (VPA) to initiate the transaction in the terminal.

Passenger will receive a payment request on the mobile to confirm payment. Passenger has to accept the payment request and passenger's linked account will be debited the fare amount.

Once the transaction is successful and this is verified on the system, counter person will print the ticket and the passenger can collect the ticket.