Easy Bill outlets to sell railway tickets

MUMBAI: Easy Bill, the bill payment venture promoted by the Hero group, is set to announce a tie-up with the Indian Railways that will make railway tickets available at over 3,000 outlets across the country from morning to late evening.

The tie-up will allow travellers to buy tickets and make payments at any of its outlets that are located at grocery stores, petrol pumps, PCO booths and chemists’ shops. The service will be available from the next quarter.

The firm also announced a tie-up with BEST for electricity bills on Wednesday that adds to the payment collection services it already offers for companies such as Reliance Energy, MSEB, MTNL, Hutch, Airtel, and Tata Indicom.

It also offers payment collection services for internet service providers such as Naukri.com and Jeevansathi.com, and insurance firms such as ICICI Prudential.

Unlike the normal drop box collections, customers have the advantage of paying by cash and credit card, in addition to cheque, and getting a receipt for their payments.

“Every Easy Bill terminal has the facility to do several different transactions with bar codes, smart cards, magnetic stripe cards or biometric readers. Customers also get an instant authorised payment receipt,” said Rahul Munjal, managing director, Easy Bill.

BEST chairman Sanjay Potnis said with convenience being the top priority for service providers, access to over 500 Easy Bill outlets in Mumbai would enable its customers to make payments on time.

“In Mumbai where most people spend an average of over an hour commuting to and from work, paying routine bills on time has always posed a problem. According to an independent market research, a consumer travels an average distance of 12 km and spends over 60 minutes to pay a bill.

He also incurs an average expenditure of Rs 15 over the actual bill amount, to pay the bill,” Mr Munjal said in a presentation. Some of the payment collections services offered by Easy Bill attract a service charge of Rs 5 per transaction.