Indian Railways to go cashless; soon to launch debit card in collaboration with SBI

Indian Railways, with the arrival of New Year 2018, has decided to go cashless. As per sources, it is all set to tie up with the State Bank of India (SBI) for its latest venture. Passengers will now be provided with SBI Debit Card which they can use to book tickets.
As per a Ministry of Railways official, “The Railway Debit Card can be used for any transaction, but when passengers buy rail tickets, it will be free of charge and will make them eligible for loyalty plans.”

Not only this, to boost cashless methods among people, the co-branded Indian Railways debit card will also conduct one monthly lottery draw wherein 10 lucky passengers will get 100% cashback.

This monthly lottery draw will commence in January. 10 lucky passengers, who have done online transaction on ticket booking, will get the entire ticket amount back and these lucky ones will be selected from the previous month.

The railway officer informed, “Ten lucky passengers, who have purchased e-tickets using their Aadhar number and have travelled during December, will be selected through a lottery and the money they have spent on tickets, will be refunded.”

Since the demonetisation, the Indian Railways had stopped charging fees for online ticketing and now Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) also doesn’t charge anything for online booking. The online website bears all the service charges levied by the banks. To reduce the burden of service charge, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had asked his officials to come up with a solution. This venture seems like a convenient solution.