There is good news for hundreds of thousands of railway passengers in the country. From now on you will be able to book tickets at petrol pumps.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation has tied up with the Bharat Petroleum Corporation and launched an e-ticketing initiative to help people book tickets at BPCL outlets.

A memorandum of understanding to this effect was signed by IRCTC managing director P K Goel and BPCL executive director (retail) Sanjay Krishnamurti in New Delhi.

Initially, tickets and other value-added services of the Indian Railways will be available at 38 BPCL outlets like petrol pumps and LPG distributor locations in seven cities and the facility will soon by extended to 100 locations.

"Anybody can go to a nearest location, pay cash and take the ticket," Goel said, adding that the initiative would was part of Railways' efforts to make available 'ticket at doorsteps'.

However, Railways will charge Rs 20 while BPCL will levy Rs 15 extra as service charges. Goel said the Railways will cut down the service charges soon as "the finer details of the scheme are being worked out".

The payment can be done using credit cards and debit cards also, he added. The cities where the scheme has been launched are Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bangalore and Pune.