Riding on the bandwagon of Cashless Jharkhand Campaign, Ranchi Division of Indian Railways is all set to launch credit/debit card payment facility most likely from Tuesday itself. A senior divisional officer said today that around one and half dozen card swipe PoS machines have already been provided to different points of the division and the system was ready to get them launched on as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday.
However, the official didn’t rule out a delay of couple of days saying that the decision to go operational with cashless mode of transaction was to be taken by ‘senior’ zonal officials, who were assessing everything before launching the system officially.
“We are ready to provide credit/debit card mode payment facility to customers visiting to reservation counters. We have deployed some 17 card swipe machines at different locations in the division so far with at least half a dozen card swipe machines at Ranchi Railway Station ticket reservation Counters along with reservation counters situated at Jharkhand Assembly and High Court. PoS machines have also been deployed at Muri, Ramgarh and a couple of other reservation counters,” said Sr. DCM (Ranchi) Neeraj Kumar.
At the same time, Kumar also said that the department was keen to provide hassle-free service to customers and was not ready to take too many risks. “This is why the senior officials are not at all in any hurry despite our preparedness, and they are spending time on smallest risks before the service is formally launched. So, we might see card swiping machines working on Ranchi Railway Station from tomorrow or day-after. However, it may be postponed for another couple of days,” said Kumar.
When asked about what were the key areas senior officials might be willing to work more on before launching the system formally, Kumar said that they were pertinent and important, though not many. “The biggest challenge is network. We are going to use State Bank of India (SBI) provided card swipe machines, which work on Bharat Sanchar Nigam limited (BSNl) provided wireless network. So, if network speed is not in sync with load at our reservation counters, the entire cheer may turn in a gloom, especially during Tatkal hours when seats get full within minutes. This is a serious area of concern,” said Kumar.
The second issue the zonal railway officials have been fighting with is related with the refund. “In case a customer decides to get his tickets bought at the counter through card cancelled, and also wants his money back instantly, what to do. Should we use same method as is applied by IRCTC or should take other is what we are working on,” Kumar said.
He also said that the officials were also working on the issue of possible misuse of card by booking clerk, if any. However, he said that these were minor issues and claimed that it will turn a huge success. He also said that goods booking counters and different types of fines collection like from without ticket passenger at platform and others would also be turned cashless in phased manner.