Indian Railways is increasingly trying to promote technology in its day-to-day work. Trains are being made safer and faster through new technology. Along with this, passenger facilities are being continuously improved with the help of technology.
Meanwhile, there is news that the Railways will now shut down its remaining ticket printing presses. So will the railway ticketing process become completely digital in the coming times? It is less likely to happen in the near future. Actually, it is possible that the Railways may hand over ticket printing to the private sector.
In 2017, the then Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had expressed his intention and said that the government wants to hand over the ticket printing work to the third party i.e. the private sector. According to reports, this is not the first time that the Railways is planning to shut down the printing presses. Railways had a total of 14 printing presses, out of which the decision to close 9 has already been taken. After that, it has been decided to close the 5 printing presses which were left with the Railways.
Order issued
Railway Board has issued orders in this regard to Zonal Railways. According to the board official, the existing railway printing presses at Byculla (Mumbai), Howrah (Kolkata), Shakurbasti (Delhi), Royapur (Chennai) and Secunderabad will be closed. Here both the reserve and general tickets of the railway were printed.
Along with this, cash receipts and 46 types of money value documents were also printed here. Let us tell you that even though its order has been given now, but the decision in principle to close these presses was taken three years ago in 2019 itself.
Boom in the sale of online tickets
Railways is now trying to move towards digitizing its tickets completely. According to a news, currently only 19 percent tickets are being bought from the counter. At the same time, 81 percent tickets are being sold online. This is a huge number. Therefore, Railways feel that the goal of complete digitization can be achieved.
