Digital drive will lead to longer queues at ticket counters: Railways

Railway authorities, who have been dealing with too many unusable ATVM machines at stations, however, feel the digital push will only add to their woes by increasing queues at ticket counters

In a bid to promote the Centre's digital India campaign, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley recently removed all duties on manufacturing of Point Of Sale (POS) debit/credit swipe machines and finger print readers. Railway authorities, who have been dealing with too many unusable ATVM machines at stations, however, feel the digital push will only add to their woes by increasing queues at ticket counters.

A railway official said, "Usually, we cater to 3 people in a minute during cash transactions. But, as most of the ATVM machines are lying defunct at various stations, this move to increase POS machines may add to confusion, leading to longer queues at ticket counters."

Apparently, ATVM machines at most stations are not working because of technical issues. Central Railway (CR) has installed 1,692 POS machines. "Transactions worth over Rs 10 lakh have been registered on these machines, in the last few days," said DK Sharma, CR general manager.

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