Train passengers alert! Now, buy food items using credit, debit cards while travelling - Here is how

Travel on Indian Railways' trains will now be even more convenient as passengers can use credit/debit cards to buy food items, following the recent decision taken by the national transporter to encourage cashless transaction to promote the Modi government's Digital India move. This facility is being implemented through Point of Sale (PoS) machines. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has provided the PoS to dozens of its authorised caterers for on-the-spot bill generation in lieu of payment of food items on-board trains. Passengers will also be able to pay their bills through credit/debit cards using the PoS machine.

The step was taken following complaints against vendors in trains for overcharging. With increased complaints, the IRCTC decided to introduce billing through Point of Sale devices to create passenger friendly atmosphere. According to the ministry, this palm-size machine would put an end to the problem of overcharging, and would make buying food-items on on-board easier. 

So far, about 2200 PoS machines have been made available in the trains with pantry cars. The Railways is planning to further increase it numbers in future. Notably, the PoS billing machines were introduced in March 2018 in SBC-NDLS Karnataka Express, train number 2627-28, on a pilot basis. In the next phase, 100 POS machines would be commissioned on 26 trains.

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PoS machine, which is an electronic device to process card payments, reads the information printed on a customer's card. It checks if a customer has sufficient funds to pay, transfers money from his/her account to the seller's account. The machine also records the whole transaction to print a receipt.