Now, Book Railway Ticket through Mobile Phone

Passengers can now book railway ticket through mobile phone. Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a public sector undertaking, under the ministry of railway, is offering the service of booking e-ticket through mobile phones.

Joint general manager (public relations), IRCTC, Pradeep Kundu told TOI that it would help the passengers to book their railway tickets through their mobile phones. The passengers are not required to show the printout of the ticket as the virtual message in the mobile phone or the laptop would be treated at par with printout of the e-ticket.

After initial registration and downloading of suitable software on the mobile handset with Internet facility, it will be easy for the mobile users to book a reserve ticket through mobile phones.


After booking, the passenger will receive a reservation message with full details of the ticket, including PNR, train No, date of journey, class etc. This virtual message would be treated at par with the printout of the e-ticket which at present is taken out by the passengers and is known as Electronic Reservation Slip (ERS). Hence, with the virtual message, passengers would not be required to take a printout of e-ticket to be carried with them. Showing the reservation message of the confirmed ticket on the mobile phone during travel will be sufficient.

The detailed procedure of booking through mobile is available on the IRCTC website called www.irctc.co.in.

Application software has to be downloaded on the mobile handset. This software is provided by the respective service provider firms viz., NGPAY, PLAYMATE and ATOM. The application can be downloaded from IRCTC website and also from various associates of IRCTC viz. NGPAY, ATOM, Paymate. IRCTC is likely to launch its mobile application shortly and the software will be downloadable from www.irctc.co.in

These mobile applications are functional on most of the GPRS/browser-based mobile phones, from basic model to high end ones.

Internet is required on mobile phones to book tickets through mobile.

The passenger has to register at the time of first transaction and thereafter book the ticket using his ID and password.

The customer is charged ticket fare, IRCTC service charge and agent service charge (Rs10 & Rs20 per class of tickets) and applicable payment gateway charges.

The service charge is similar to e-tickets (Rs10 for SL class and Rs20 for higher classes).