Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Indian Railways, please install swiping machines where people can use credit card/debit card for transactions. Would you?



I had been to KR Puram railway station (Railway code KJM) to book train tickets. Assuming there would be ATMs available in the vicinity of railway station, To my bad luck, hardly there were any within railway station. On enquiry, I found one AXIS bank ATM around 300 m cross road to front side of KR Puram railway station. That was under repair!

Again I went on looking for next near by ATM on the back side of railway station and I found Canara bank ATM around 200m and it agreed to give me money on swiping. Thanks to Canara bank.

Railways is the most busiest and profitable organization run by Govt. I understand it would cost them to provide swiping machines at all railway reservation counters and that require huge infrastructure..

But I believe it would benefit more to people than setting up wifi in railway stations.

It helps because:
1. People need not carry money with them and thus they need not bother about safety when carrying money
2. Government would be able to track the transactions and can document/track the money.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Suggestion to Indian railways

Open a bank account and share the account details to public and let public donate funds to Indian railways.

Why am I saying this is because of my personal experience which I am sharing below:
I had to go to a different place in a train. For some reasons I got little late and had to hurry to railway station. By the time I reached, train was already on the platform and was ready to leave in a minute. Though I knew is wrong to board the train without a ticket, I got into train's general compartment without a ticket. Luckily TT didn't come and I reached my destination. All thanks to railways. Now I knew I should pay back the fare to railways. But how would I?

I wanted to pay only fare and not fine :-P

I am not the only one who would have experienced similar situation. Though we want to buy tickets and only then board the train, queues in railway stations, and our delay in reaching stations make us board without ticket.  And all such people want to pay back for the ticket less travel.
I agree there are people who wants to use trains without giving a penny but surely more are the people who wants to give back for the service rendered by railways.

Railways might also be aware of such usage of trains.

Railways could do these to get more funds:
1. Share a valid account to which people can transfer funds using NEFT/RTGS - the advantage is people after boarding a train can transfer fare for their destination to railways and show it as a proof to TT Or as  a responsible citizen they would simply transfer the fund.
2. Railways can keep a drop box or a donation box where people can put in money for what ever good reason.

Thanks,
Venkatesh