Thursday, June 7, 2007

Indian Railway Ticket Reservation Through SMS

Indian Railway offers online railway reservation through www.irctc.co.in (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited) web site. IRCTC also offers rail reservation through mobiles using Speech recognition, GPRS and CDMA technologies available on various mobile Operators. IRCTC also introduced the simplest way to book your Railway ticket using just two SMS messages (Short Messaging Service). This service is introduced with the following mobile operators across the India.
  1. IDEA Cellular - Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi & NCR
  2. MTNL /Delhi - Delhi & NCR
  3. Reliance Infocomm - All circles
  4. Other operators like BSNL, Hutch,MTNL-Mumbai and Tata Indicom will soon integration with Indian Railway for SMS booking.

How to Book Tickets using SMS

In order to book rail tickets using SMS, the following are a must:

  • The user needs to be registered with www.irctc.co.in and opted to use the mobile reservation services.
  • User should have created at least one "Passenger List" in his profile registered with IRCTC. This list will be used for the SMS booking process.
  • The customer has to be registered for the Mobile Banking services of ICICI Bank (Other banks will be integrated soon)
  • The user must have a mobile connection with any one of the operators listed above (more operators are also being added.)
  • The entire process of "book ticket" can be done through two SMS messages, using IRCTC’s short code 7245

How to Register?

You need to sign up in www.irctc.co.in in order to avail this service. The User has to select "mobile booking" option in the profile / registration page to avail all types of Mobile Booking facilities including SMS booking. The user needs to input mobile number, mobile operator, and preferred payment option (At present ICICI Bank only). ICICI Bank will be charging Rs 10 for this service for each booking. You will need to be registered to the "Mobile Shopping Service" provided by ICICI Bank and enter the 'mShop Name' through SMS.

For more details please visit IRCTC Mobile Booking web page.

Service Provided Operators

RELIANCE
  • PNR Alert Service on 7245
  • Ticket Reservation through R-World( Payment through Credit Cards)
  • SMS Booking on 7245
IDEA
  • PNR Alert Service on 7245
  • Voice Based Ticket Reservation on 456( Payment through Credit Cards)
  • SMS Booking on 7245
MTNL Delhi
  • PNR Alert Service on 7245
  • SMS Booking on 7245
MTNL Mumbai
  • PNR Alert Service on 7245
HUTCH
  • PNR Alert Service on 7245
  • Voice Based Ticket Reservation on 123( Payment through Credit Cards)
  • GPRS Based Ticket Reservation( Payment through Credit Cards)
TATA INDICOM
  • PNR Alert Service on 7245
  • Voice Based Ticket Reservation on 12900( Payment through Credit Cards)
AIRTEL
  • PNR Alert Service on 7245

Already registered users of www.irctc.co.in can use their existing user id and password to log in and transact through Hutch / Idea/ Tata Indicom / Reliance handsets

First time users can avail the registration facility offered by the mobile operator or visit www.irctc.co.in and use the normal registration form.