CHENNAI: In a bid to promote paperless tickets and discourage serpentine queues at ticket counters, the railways has extended the bonus of five percent of the recharge value in the Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) mobile app till August 24, 2022.
The app allows users to book unreserved tickets for suburban, mail and super fast trains. The user has to recharge the R-wallet for paying the ticket fare through the app.
The app was first launched in December 2014 for Mumbai suburban trains and extended to Chennai and Kolkata suburban sections in subsequent years.
On April 1, 2018, Southern Railway extended the ticket booking facility in UTS applications across the zone for all trains including passenger, express and superfast trains. Since then, a five per cent bonus for recharge value was introduced in the app. For a recharge of Rs 1000, the R-wallet will get credit of Rs 1050.
Recently, the Railway Board, the apex body of Indian Railways, ordered to extend the existing scheme up to August 24, 2022.
The mobile app which was suspended in March last year was reintroduced in January this year. Ticket booking facility is enabled for suburban, express and passenger trains.
A railway official said mobile ticketing facilities are available round the clock except from 6.30 am to 9.30 am and 4 to 7 pm in view of the pandemic. "All other terms and conditions remain unchanged," he said.
The user should be away from the track/railway premises for 15 metres and should be within a five km radius from the boarding station, added the official.