OREANDA-NEWS. January 04, 2012. To bring further convenience to the rail users, Indian Railways through Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a Public Sector Undertaking under the Ministry of Railway, has been offering the service of booking e-ticket over the mobile phone. After initial registration and downloading of suitable software on the mobile handset with internet facility, it will be quite easy for the mobile users to book a reserve ticket through their own mobile. After booking, the passenger will receive a reservation message with full details of the ticket including PNR, Train No, date of journey, class etc. This virtual message would be treated at par with the print-out of the e-ticket which at present is taken out by the passengers and is known as Electronic Reservation Slip (ERS).  Hence, with the virtual message, passengers would not be required to take a print-out of e-ticket to be carried with them. Showing the reservation message of the confirmed ticket on their mobile during travel will be sufficient. The detail procedure of booking through mobile which is also available on the IRCTC website namely www.irctc.co.in,   is as follows:-

•        Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) offers the service of booking electronic ticket (e-ticket) over the mobile to rail users.
•        IRCTC’s Mobile Rail Ticket booking services are based on the webservices model developed by IRCTC in order to enable the users of Mobile Phones to access the web based rail ticket reservation and enquiry services similar to www.irctc.co.in.
•        Application software has to be downloaded on to the mobile handset.  This software is provided by the respective service provider firms viz., NGPAY, PAYMATE and ATOM. The application can be downloaded from IRCTC website and also from various associates of IRCTC viz. NGPAY, ATOM, Paymate.  IRCTC is also likely to launch its mobile application shortly and the software will be downloadable from www.irctc.co.in.
•        These mobile applications are functional on most of the GPRS/Browser based mobile phones, from basic model to high end ones.
•        Internet is required on mobile phones to book tickets through mobile.
•        The Passenger has to register at the time of first transaction and thereafter book the ticket using his ID and password.
•        Whenever a passenger books a reserved ticket through Mobile phone, he will receive a message with full details of the ticket including PNR, Train No., date of journey, class, etc.  This virtual message would be treated at par with the print-out of the e-ticket which at present is taken out by the passengers and is known as Electronic Reservation Slip (ERS).  Hence, with this virtual message, passengers would not be required to have a printer with them to take a print-out of e-ticket to be carried with them.
•        The customer is charged ticket fare, IRCTC service charge and Agent service charge (Rs.10/- & Rs.20/- as per class of tickets) and applicable payment gateway charges.
•        The Service Charge is similar to e-tickets Rs.10/- for SL class and Rs.20/- for other higher class.
•        All the rules applicable to e-tickets are also applicable to the reserved tickets booked through Mobile phones except that in this case, the passenger can also show the virtual message received on mobile instead of carrying ERS.
•        More than a thousand users presently are availing this facility everyday.