MADURAI: Railway passengers can now swipe their debit or credit cards to purchase tickets at the Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counters.
Over a month after demonetisation, the railway have woken up to the need for having point-of-sale (POS) machines in its counters to help passengers cope with note ban blues. “Card payment helps as many ATMs, including the ones supposed to function round-the-clock, are dry,” said M Raja, a passenger who bought four train tickets to Thiruthani under tatkal at the railway station here on Sunday.
B Guganesan, senior divisional commercial manager, said, “POS machines have been installed at three PRS counters in Madurai railway station and one each in Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli on December 12.”
Plans are afoot to install them in 24 other PRS counters and 36 Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) counters in the Madurai railway division.
But the card payment does encounter hiccups. Chandran, who tried to book two tickets under tatkal, said, “The staff swiped my card but the system failed to respond and crashed. When it recovered, only waitlisted tickets were available for booking. When I tried to cancel the ticket, I was told that it will take time for refund, at least three days.”