All aboard as Indian Railways rolls out NFT train tickets

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) will provide train tickets in the form of NFTs to the passengers of two newly launched semi-high speed trains.

The Indian Railways will provide nonfungible token (NFT) train tickets for two specific Delhi-bound trains between March 20th and April 2nd on the occasion of the Hindu festival, Holi. 

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) announced that passengers of two newly launched semi-high-speed trains — Tejas Express 82501 and 82502 — would receive train tickets in the form of NFTs.

IRCTC stated in an official post:

“These tickets are not merely digital souvenirs; they are a celebration of the rich cultural tapestry of (the Indian cities of) Lucknow and Delhi.”

With NFT train tickets, India aims to enhance the “journey experiences” of travelers by allowing the creation of personalized NFTs that can be verified on the blockchain by authorities and the public.

The initiative pays tribute to the festival of Holi, known as the festival of colors, and is co-powered by a digitization platform NFTtrace.

The company will help maintain the records of train ticket purchases on the Hyperledger blockchain and employ smart contracts to govern the traceability process.

Over 1.2 million tickets are booked on IRCTC on a daily basis, which could significantly increase NFT adoption if the initiative goes mainstream in the region for all trains. Digitizing tickets with NFTs will not only prevent the prevalent issue of forgery and misplacements.

NFTtrace has yet to respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

Related: India plans faster stock settlements to slow down crypto migration

India recently revealed that it primarily makes use of three blockchain platforms for the development of its products — Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Sawtooth and Ethereum.

On March 6, it was revealed that nearly eight million government-issued verifiable documents are currently hosted across five blockchains owned and operated by India’s National Informatics Centre (NIC), a government agency.

The five blockchain products currently used in India are certificate chain, document chain, drug logistics chain, judiciary chain and property chain.