 "Mobiles take centrestage in Rail Budget 2012")
Mobile phones, undoubtedly are making their presence felt in the bigger picture; and at the Rail Budget today, it seemed to have taken the centrestage. In his speech today, Indian Railway minister, Dinesh Trivedi revealed that an SMS on a passenger’s mobile phone can now be presented as a valid proof of reservation in case of an e-ticket. That being said, however, passengers will still be required to carry a valid identification document, like voter ID card, passport, PAN card etc, along with them.This move, he believes will make travel by the Indian railways more passenger-friendly. In addition to that, the new Rail Budget also includes provisions for satellite based real time train information system (SIMRAN). a system, which will ensure that passengers receive real time data, by the way of an SMS, Internet, among other things. Passengers can also look forward to the new ‘Book-a-meal’ scheme, which will be implemented with a view to offer passengers multiple meal choices, through SMS, or e-mail.
Playing the bigger role (Image credit: Getty Images)
Early this year, we had reported about the the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) making big leaps in embracing technology - unveiling a new mobile portal - irctc.co.in/mobile was one such step. Now, however, it seems that the IRCTC has bigger plans - a mobile app. The app, which IRCTC will introduce soon will allow users to access features similar to what they can access on the web version of the IRCTC. Users can choose to make their payments using, either credit card, debit card or cash cards. The proposed app will be in addition to the three apps, that exist already, which include Paymate, Ngpay and Atom and are available across all platforms. These apps can be used to book railway tickets, and passengers can make their payment using credit cards, debit cards or even mobile wallet accounts.
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