Now Book Railway Reservation
through Simple SMS! – an IRCTC/CRIS initiative
A user’s guide, comparisons and limitations
of the railway’s latest SMS based ticketing service targeting the mobile phone
population
Indian Railways now provides enough options for you to avoid the queue
at the booking counter. The latest is the SMS ticketing service which targets
the 80 percent mobile phone population in India.
Railways has launched the service to book tickets through SMS on
July 1. You do not need to download any app and do not even need a phone with
internet connection. This is a smart move because only less than 5 percent of
India owns a smart phone among the 80 percent who own mobile phones in India.
As with any new service, there are many questions and
apprehensions regarding the service; there are a few pointers hence on how to
book tickets using the SMS ticketing method.
There are two numbers through which people
could book tickets through SMS: 139 and 5676714
Booking through 139
This is a simple process and involves two steps, sending the
travel information (date of journey, number of passengers, train number) and
getting a transaction id and paying for the ticket. Before getting on to
booking your ticket with 139 on SMS, you need the following essentials:
1. An IRCTC account for which you
have to register at www.irctc.in
2. A mobile number registered both
with your bank and IRCTC. A registered mobile number is the one in the records
with your bank and can also be used for your banking needs. This same number
should be in the records of IRCTC else the SMS ticketing will return an error.
3. A four-digit Mobile Money
Identifier (MMID) code needed for the payment process. To register your bank
account for MMID, choose your bank from a list <hyperlink ‘list’ to
http://www.npci.org.in/bankmember.aspx> of 26 banks which offer this service.
You can click on the bank in the list which will direct you to
bank site which explains the procedure for availing an MMID. For most banks,
all one has to do is send one’s MMID followed by the last four digits of your
account number from a registered account number to this number. The MMID is
sent almost instantly.
Once armed with an IRCTC account, MMID and a registered mobile
number, you are ready to book your ticket.
To start, SMS, BOOK <TravelDate(DDMM)> (upto 6 passengers)
to 139 to book your ticket.
You will receive a message in the following format:
Transaction id, Ticket Amount, Service Charges, Total Amount Seat
status. For Payment: SMS PAY IMPS IRCTCUserID to 139
Decoding the above message:
The customer will get a message with a unique transaction id of
seven digits, the amount of the ticket, added service charge, total amount and
the status of availability of seats. For payment, the format for SMS code to be
sent to 139 will be as follows:
PAY IMPS IRCTCUserID
This where you need to get an OTP. OTP is one-time password
provided by the banks for safe banking. Different banks have different
procedures for OTP. For example, with ICICI Bank it can be requested by sending
‘OTP’ from a registered mobile number to a specific number provided by ICICI
Bank. You can also request it on your registered email id.
Where TID is Transaction id.
IMPS is used when you want to use the mobile payment gateway to
pay for the ticket.
OTP or one-time password
IRCTC User Id is your IRCTC user name.
Once your details are verified, your ticket will be booked and you
will get a congratulatory message about your ticket booking.
Tickets can be cancelled by sending CAN followed by PNR number and
IRCTC user ID to 139. This is for full cancellation. For partial cancellation,
the customer needs to send CAN followed by PNR number, IRCTC user ID and
passenger name and number.
Booking through 5676714
This method is a little different method of booking tickets. For
this method too, the customer would need a mobile number registered with IRCTC
and his/her bank account. Apart from IMPS, this also provides the facility to
pay by ‘mWallet’ which is a mobile payment platform where payments can be made
from an existing account known as ‘Zipcash’.
To register on ‘Zipcash’, all a customer needs to do is send ZIP
to 56767 after which a login name and PIN number will be sent to the mobile
phone number. You can recharge your Zipcash account online at https://www.zipcash.in/User/commands.html
and pay through that when you book your ticket.
To start with the process, SMS START IRCTC user id to 5676714.
This message again should be sent from a registered mobile number.
As a reply, the customer will receive the format for sending the
SMS along with instructions for booking the ticket. One can get further
clarifications by sending HELP to 56767.
The format is as follows:
BOOK Date of journey in DD/MM/YY format, Train number, class,
passenger name, age, gender. This is valid for only four passengers.
If all the fields are entered correctly, the customer will receive
the following reply:
As mentioned above, payment can be made through IMPS, which is the
same as the payment method when ticket is booked through 139 or through MPAY.
MPAY is the mobile wallet application through which payments can be made using
Zipcash.
For payment, the following SMS needs to be sent to 5676714:
For IMPS method: Pay IMPS
For MPAY method: Pay MPAY
Instructions in both cases would be sent as a reply to the
customer. In case of IMPS, customer will have to proceed with MMID and OTP
received from the bank to complete the transaction, just as when using 139.
Money would be deducted in one step in case of MPAY system where the customers
use Zipcash to pay for the ticket.
Limitations
While both the methods provide an easy way to book tickets, you
cannot book tickets under any quota and not between 8am and 12am. Everything is
in English, which is again a limitation as the target population of mobile
owners is not all English-speaking. Both the payment options need you to be
under the umbrella of banked population which is also not true of all the
people this service is targeting. Hopefully, such shortcomings will be taken
care of once the system starts running and changes are made accordingly.
Comparison
In booking with both 139 and 5676714, the 139 method looked easier
as it was just a two-step process. In booking with 5676714, the payment step
was further divided into two more steps which looked complicated when compared
with 139. Of course, 5676714 gives an option to book using Zipcash which will
be an easier method for those who already have Zipcash accounts for making
other payments. 139 also allows you to book tickets for six passengers in one
go while 5676714 allows for only four.
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