• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Our Bureau

BANK ON TRACK: Mr Lalu Prasad, Railway Minister, with Mr S.C. Gupta, CMD, Punjab National Bank, Mr M.B.N. Rao, Chairman and Managing Director, Canara Bank, and Dr A.K. Khandelwal, Chairman and Managing Director, Bank of Baroda, during a meeting in the Capital on Wednesday. — Kamal Narang

New Delhi , Nov. 22

As part of its initiative to improve ticket-booking facilities for passengers, the Railways would soon enable buying of reserved train tickets from ATMs, which are being set up at railway stations.

The ATMs would have Internet access facility, using which passengers can book e-tickets. The ATM site design and kiosk design for Internet access (to be used for e-ticketing) have already been approved. Setting up of ATMs with e-ticketing facilities will help in reducing long queues at the counters.

After entering into an agreement with the State Bank of India to set up 682 ATMs at railway stations, Indian Railways today entered into an agreement with six nationalised banks to set up another 711 ATMs at railway stations for passengers to withdraw cash. Out of the 711 ATMs, 473 will have e-ticketing facilities.

The banks include Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank, Union Bank of India, Indian Bank and Punjab National Bank. Currently , 86 ATMs have been installed at various stations and by the end of 2006-07, 250 ATMs are expected to be operational. The Railways aims to set up 4,000 ATMs at various stations.

It has already taken steps to increase points of ticket sales and facilitate online bookings through Internet cafés and post-offices, among others. Earlier, it had tied up with Sify Ltd to enable passengers to book train tickets online at Sify's Internet cafés using cash payment.

As on date, about 60 per cent of tickets booked online are e-tickets whereas the rest are i-tickets (Internet-tickets). In e-tickets, customer takes the ticket printout from a system at his end.

More Stories on : Convergence | Railways | Public Sector Banks

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
India, China biz teams get to know each other

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line