Indian Railways introduces NFT train tickets, welcoming passengers on board

Indian Railways is set to introduce nonfungible token (NFT) train tickets for two specific Delhi-bound trains from March 20th to April 2nd in celebration of the Hindu festival, Holi. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has announced that passengers of the Tejas Express 82501 and 82502 trains will receive their tickets in the form of NFTs. With this initiative, India aims to enhance the travel experience by allowing the creation of personalized NFTs that can be verified on the blockchain. The IRCTC portal will enable travelers to verify their ticket purchases on the blockchain, preventing forgery and misplaced tickets. The records of these purchases will be maintained on the Hyperledger blockchain, with the traceability process governed by smart contracts. By digitizing tickets with NFTs, the IRCTC hopes to increase NFT adoption and address the issue of ticket forgery. The initiative is co-powered by NFTtrace, a digitization platform. India has been actively utilizing blockchain technology in various sectors, including government-issued documents, with nearly eight million verifiable documents currently hosted on five blockchains operated by the National Informatics Centre.