Southern Railway lays track for digital cash; rolls out point of sale machines to 70 counters

November 8, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation, the zone only had 28 ticket counters across the zone covering the whole of Tamil Nadu and Kerala besides a few parts of Karnataka. DTNext has reliably learnt that the zone has planned to provide 300 more PoS machines in the coming weeks. Senior SR officers in the know of things told this paper that the new machines would cover a good number of suburban stations, where travellers have been allowed to buy or renew their monthly season passes using credit and debit cards. 

Strangely, railways would have done well to apply a little more thought while promoting cashless transaction as a chunk of ticket bookings done at suburban and major stations account for unreserved express and suburban tickets while the railway board rule only provides for renewing monthly season passes using credit/debit cards. Even a few SR officers conceded that the real benefit of providing PoS machines would not be materialised if they confine its usage to season pass renewal at suburban stations. Even a quick glance at Chennai Railway division’s earnings would demonstrate the inefficacy of PoS, for the daily earnings of unreserved and suburban ticket counters has been consistently double the revenue netted from reservation ticket counters.  

SR has refunded 80 per cent of the TDR (ticket deposit receipts) refund requests made since November 8. A senior SR officer said the zone has refunded 80 per cent of around 2,500 requests (ticket value running above Rs 5,000) placed post-demonetisation. “People booked in bulks running in to several thousands to get currency notes easily and hence we chose to refund the sum online and pay in cash for those below Rs 5,000. We have sought Aadhar and PAN card details for the rest,” Chief public relation officer of SR P A Dhananjayan said.