New Delhi, Dec 31 (IANS): The Indian Railways on Friday announced additional measures to promote digital and cashless payments for tickets which would come in effect from January 1, 2017.

"Railways has decided to instruct Yatri Ticket Suvidha Kendras to install POS (point of sale) machines and accept payments through all banks debit or credit cards for issuing both reserved and unreserved tickets," the Railway Ministry said in a statement.

"They are encouraged to accept payments through other modes also like UPI (Unified Payment Interface), USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data), e-wallet, Aadhar enabled payments system."

The statement elaborated that railways has also instructed "Jan Sadharan Ticket Booking Seva" (JTBs) to accept payments through other modes like UPI, USSD, e-wallets, Aadhar enabled payments system to issue unreserved tickets.

The ministry further announced five per cent discount for booking of retiring room through digital means and 0.5 per cent discount in the base fare of season tickets (which pertains to monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, yearly) over suburban sections.

"Other charges like MUTP (Mumbai Urban Transport Project) surcharge, mela surcharge, service tax etc, if applicable shall be levied separately on the base fare arrived at after giving the 0.5 per cent concession," the statement added.