Ranchi, Dec. 11: Ranchi railway division, under South Eastern Railway, has geared up in response to the railway ministry's directive to make ticketing system cashless.
The ministry directive has ordered 15,000 points of sale (PoS) machines for card swipes at reservation counters across India, with at least 1,000 machines to be installed before December 31. In the first phase, ticketing services at all urban stations would be upgraded with the cashless system. Ranchi and Hatia stations under the RRD are considered urban centres.
Currently, the railways do not provide PoS service for debit and credit card payments at its ticket counters. With installation of PoS machines, passengers would be able to use both debit and credit cards at reservation counters.
Yesterday, SER headquarters sought reports from the RRD on functional ticketing counters, the total number of stations, footfalls, types of trains plying in the route among others, to decide where PoS machines would be installed in the first phase. Acting fast, railway officials sent the report yesterday itself.
"This division has 43 stations with a passenger reservation system (PRS) for long-distance reservation facility at Ranchi, Hatia, Muri, Ramgarh and Jhalda. There are total 22 such reservation counters in the division. We are assuming that Ranchi station will come under the first phase of the PoS coverage. However, the million dollar question for us is whether the ticketing systems can be upgraded to the PoS facility by December 31," said Niraj Kumar, senior divisional commercial manager, RRD.
Prodded, Kumar said if Ranchi station did not go cashless by December 31, it would do so by the first fortnight of January 2017.
The integration involves a lot of groundwork, he explained. "Though groundwork has started, I am not sure if the upgrade will happen by December 31 as integration with the central server is a big task. The unreserved ticket system or the UTS too has to be brought under the cashless system, hence ticketing systems will be modified in such a way that the central server caters to both the PRS and UTS," he said.
Explaining the challenges that the stations under the first phase of this cashless activity will face, he said that counters handle both purchase and cancellation of tickets. So, the technology at reservation counters at the stations would be modified on the lines of online ticketing.
"Once the system is integrated with PoS machines, the entire ticketing system has to be modified to respond to both bookings and cancellations," Kumar said.
