Indian Railways Introduces Booking of Paperless Unreserved Tickets 

The Indian Railways which has already introduced paperless ticketing has now come up with booking of paperless unreserved tickets through mobile phones as a pilot project in some stations in Central, Western, Eastern, Southern, South Eastern, South Central and Northern Railways. Passengers can also book season tickets and platform tickets.

In case of e-tickets booked through Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website or mobile application, Short Message Service (SMS) sent by IRCTC and screen shot of the e-ticket (Virtual Reservation Message) displayed through laptops/palmtops/mobile phones had already been permitted as valid authority for travel along with prescribed identity proof in original subject to appearance of name of the passengers on the reservation chart.

According to a press release given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha on December 14, this convenience has now been extended to passengers to book unreserved tickets as well. This automatically does away with standing in long queues as well.