Central Railway introduces e-bill to curb overpricing at Mumbai’s Kurla station

CR will expand the initiative to other railway stations

In a key step to curb overcharging, the Central Railway on Monday introduced electronic billing on its Kurla railway station. Passengers can also pay via debit/credit card as point of sale (POS) machines have been installed in food stalls. This initiative was taken after CR had received several complaints from passengers over the past one year that stall owners overcharged.

A customer shows an e-bil at Kurla railway station.

“Electronic billing will boost the digital India initiative; we have started with Kurla and will slowly cover all railway stations on our network,” said SK Jain, divisional railway manager, CR.

After Kurla, Matunga, Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) and Kalyan railway stations are next in line for the e-bill project. Work on Matunga railway station has nearly completed and the operation will begin by the end of this week.

“There were a lot of complaints, vendors would charge extra. E-bills will completely eradicate overcharging,” said a senior CR official.

Passenger associations have welcomed the move and have stated that the electronic billing will reduce corruption. “This is a welcome move as there will be transparency and reduce corruption drastically. The problem of overcharging will also reduce drastically; however, if there is any complaints the railways should address it immediately,” said Subhash Gupta, president, Rail Yatri Parishad.