You can now book your railway tickets on your mobile phone and show the SMS to the travelling ticket examiner as a proof. Indian Railways has recently launched a new facility called 'M-ticket' that allows passengers to board a train without taking a printout of the booked ticket -- the SMS is proof enough.

What's more, booking an m-ticket is simple. Just log on to the official Indian railways website- www.indianrail.gov.in and install a free app on your mobile phone. Whenever you want to book a ticket, all you need to so is open this app, feed in the required details from your mobile phone, and pay through the mobile phone itself. Within 20 minutes, you will get an SMS containing the ticket details This SMS is referred as Mobile Reservation Message (MRM).

Booking rail tickets on phone is not new and has been made possible for quite a while through platforms like ngpay. It works on all the mobile phones, from basic models to high-end ones. And across all mobile networks too. However, MRM is an innovation from the railways in that it is treated on par with printed ticket. The Indian Railways website says even a screen shot of the m-ticket will work as a proof. However the passenger will still need to carry a photo identity proof along with the SMS for the booking to be valid.