With the aim of decongesting ticket booking counters and to ensure smooth compliance of social distancing norms, the facility to book unreserved tickets through ‘UTS on mobile app’ is being reactivated by Indian Railways.
The facility was discontinued when the coronavirus-triggered lockdown was imposed on the country last year.
The railways has now issued instructions to all zones to enable the facility to book through unreserved ticketing system (UTS) on mobile app.
Currently, the national transporter has operationalised almost 65 per cent of its mail and express trains and over 90 per cent of its suburban services as compared to the pre-lockdown levels.
“On Indian Railways, unreserved train services are being introduced in a phased manner. In order to avoid any inconvenience to passengers in booking unreserved tickets and to ensure norms of social distancing at booking counters while purchasing the tickets, it has been decided that in addition to UTS on mobile app facility available on suburban sections, this facility may also be reintroduced on non-suburban sections of zonal railways,” Railway Ministry said in a statement.
“Zonal Railways have been instructed that whenever unreserved train services are introduced on any zonal railway, the zonal railway concerned may accordingly enable UTS on mobile app for issuing unreserved tickets,” it added.
A total of 1,250 mail and express trains, 5,350 suburban trains and more than 326 passenger trains are currently in operation on a daily basis.