Hello there, this question, “What is difference between E-ticket and I-ticket in IRCTC ?” must have come into your minds, when you were booking your train ticket, and got to choose an option from the drop-down list below:

Now, In layman terms, let us look into what these tickets are:

• e-ticket: It is an online ticket which you book using your IRCTC account and then you get a reservation confirmation by an SMS. You just have to produce your original I-card before the TTE.

• i-ticket: It is also a sort of online ticket for which you pay the charges online, and then your ticket is delivered to your address by courier or speed post.

In short, we can say that you just purchased a PRS ticket online and saved yourself from the hassle of standing in a queue at the reservation counter.

• And now, you might be wondering about the difference between these tickets:
• You can book e-tickets until the last day of your journey, and you get the reservation details immediately via SMS.

However, you need to book i-tickets atleast 3 days before your journey as they need to be delivered to you.

• Similarly, e-ticket being an online ticket you can instantly cancel the ticket by logging in to your IRCTC account and the money would be refunded to your bank account.

However, for an i-ticket you would need to queue up at the reservation counter and they would cancel the ticket for you just like an ordinary PRS ticket. But here the catch is that you had paid for your ticket online, and hence, the money would be refunded to your bank account.

Upon reading until now, you all must be wondering that why choose an i-ticket even if an e-ticket seems more beneficial, let me tell you why…

When you choose to book an i-ticket, you need to pay INR 40/- as courier fee. But you get a PRS ticket, which means that even if your ticket is wait-listed after the chart has been prepared, your ticket is not cancelled. So, you can choose to travel just the way you did with your PRS (counter ) tickets.

Unlike this your e-tickets would get cancelled, if they remain wait-listed…

This is where your 40 rupees make a lot of difference…

These were the basic differences between i-tickets and e-tickets.

Hope this helps you…

Thanks…

Source:  Dheeraj Kumar Ravi