Railways to launch Mobile Payment Ticketing Facility

Soon, passengers will be able to book their train tickets via mobile SMS as Indian Railways is to start Mobile Payment Ticketing Facility from July 1, 2013. The service will be available to all mobile subscribers.

This facility offered by irctc, will have no role of travel agents and commercial organisations. Only individual users will be allowed to book on the portal. Travel agents in the IRCTC service have been accused of blocking tickets to sell them at a premium.
How to book the ticket?
A passenger has to type the train number, destination, journey date, class and passenger details like name, age and gender on the SMS box.
For starting, one has to register their mobile number with IRCTC as well as their bank. The bank provides MMID (Mobile Money Identifier) and OTP (One Time Password) for payment authorization. The sender will receive transaction ID and then make payment through sending another SMS by typing PAY followed by the transaction ID, MMID as received from the bank and password, thus the booking is complete.
Charges: The service will be available to all mobile subscribers and Rs 3/- will be charged per SMS and payment gateway charges will be Rs 5/- for ticket amount upto Rs 5,000 and Rs 10/- for more than Rs 5,000.

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2013