Faced with increasing incidents of misuse of tickets, Railways have made it mandatory for all passengers travelling in AC classes to carry an identity proof with them.

So far, carrying ID proof was required only for passengers travelling with e-tickets or with tatkal tickets.

The decision will come into effect from February 15 in all trains across the country, said a Railway Ministry official.

The official said any one passenger in a group will be required to carry the ID proof.

The ID proof could be a voter ID, pancard, passport, driving license issued by RTO, nationalised bank passbook with photo, credit card issued by banks with laminated photos, student ID card with photo or Aadhaar, the official said.

The decision comes in the backdrop of increasing cases of misuse of tickets like transfer of tickets, black marketing of tickets and growing involvement of touts.

During 2008-09, 20,240 cases of ticket transfer was reported and 2521 were apprehended. In 2010-11 63,854 such cases were detected and 2480 people were apprehended, the official said.

"With this decision, such cases will come down to zero," the official hoped.

Centre For Railway Information Systems (CRIS) has been asked to make necessary changes in the software so as to incorporate the message in the rail tickets for the benefit of the passengers.