[ad_1]
New Delhi: Four years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) — an interoperable card to allow seamless travel across transport options and which can be used to pay toll tax, parking charges, retail costs and cash withdrawal — just six metro corporations and three state public transport systems have the facility to use it, according to information provided by the ministry of housing and urban affairs Friday.
Metro rail corporations in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Kanpur and Bengaluru are NCMC-compliant — which means they have upgraded the automated fare collection systems for the card — while state-run bus transport systems in Goa, Mumbai and Haryana have successful implemented facilities for usage of NCMC, ministry officials said.
Launched in March 2019, the indigenously-developed NCMC falls under the ‘One Nation One Card’ initiative and is meant to enable seamless travel with a common payment option enabled via the RuPay card mechanism. The card is issuable as a prepaid, debit, or credit RuPay card from partnered banks.
Of the six metro corporations, including the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation’s (DMRC) entire 393-km network, most became fully NCMC-compliant this year. But in the rest of the metro networks, smart cards issued by the respective metro corporations are operational.
On Friday, Union housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri held a meeting of the consultative committee, which comprises MPs, on the issue of urban transport. During the meeting, one of the issues raised was ease of travel and the NCMC.
“The NCMC card is based on qSPARC (Quick Specification for Payment Application of Rupay Chip) developed by National Payments Corporation of India,” the ministry said in a statement.
According to transport experts, while ‘One Nation One Card’ is a good concept, its adoption is slow and with new technology for payments, such as UPI, in place, there is a need to explore options where a physical card is not required.
Amit Bhatt, managing director of International Council on Clean Transportation, told ThePrint: “Post-Covid, digital payments have gone up in the country. A large number of people are now using UPI for payment, even to street vendors. The question is: will people really want to use a physical card in the future, which is currently being issued for commuting?”
“There is a need to leverage the revolution we have created, that is UPI, and look at other frameworks for mobility. It could be a virtual card. We need to take a different innovative approach,” he added.
Also Read: Delhi Metro restart — hopeless autos, 3-step sanitisation & deserted Rajiv Chowk
‘Transition will take time’
It is only this year that metro corporations in Kanpur, Chennai, Delhi, etc, started the NCMC facility on the entire network, senior housing ministry officials said.
The metro corporations have also tied up with banks to issue prepaid NCMC cards at metro stations. However, usage of the common card on various metro networks where it can be used is not very high.
For instance, DMRC, which last month recorded 71 lakh passenger journeys in a day, started issuing NCMC from its 288 stations from 5 June, 2023.
A senior DMRC official said: “Approximately 1.90 lakh cards have been issued so far and close to 3,000 NCMC cards are issued daily. On an average, close to 40,000 NCMC transactions are happening per day.”
In Kanpur, issuing of NCMC was started in March this year. Uttar Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation officials said that tenders had been floated for upgradation of the automatic fare collection system at the Lucknow Metro so that the common card could be used.
Last year, a parliamentary panel had expressed “disappointment” at the slow pace of adoption of NCMC.
“Moving at this pace, operationalising NCMC fully across the entire country’s metro and other mass transit networks seems a far-fetched dream. The committee also apprehends that without involving the ministry of roads, transport and highways and state governments, the operationalisation of NCMC across all transit networks throughout the country may not be possible,” the parliamentary standing committee on housing and urban affairs had said in its report tabled in Parliament last December.
When asked about the slow pace of NCMC’s implementation, a senior ministry official told ThePrint that “it is not correct to say that the pace is slow”.
“In an operational system, upgradation work has to be carried out in such a way that metro operations are not hampered. This is one of the facilities being provided to passengers for hassle-free commute. The transition will take time and, gradually, we can make people switch from the cards that are currently in use to the NCMC,” he added.
In some of the existing networks, a second senior ministry official said, fare collection has been outsourced and metro corporations have a long-term contract with banks and other payment gateways for the same.
“It is a closed-loop collection system. It will not accept mobility cards issued by other metros. It will also not use the NCMC. For NCMC, the automated fare collection gates have to be upgraded,” said the official.
The ministry of housing has constituted a committee to look into the issue of exclusive arrangements made with banks by various metro corporations for fare collection, according to officials.
“NCMC guidelines came in 2019, whereas the metro corporations had entered into agreements with banks long ago. The committee is looking into all possibilities for swift implementation of NCMC in all metro systems which have entered into exclusive arrangements with banks,” said the second official.
NCMC in buses
The Delhi government has recently invited bids for introducing the common mobility card on its entire bus fleet.
Delhi transport commissioner Ashish Kundra told ThePrint: “The card will be interoperable between the metro and buses. We have done the technical evaluation and shortlisted four companies. We have asked them to give a demo of their capabilities. The idea is to get the ticketing on a digital platform and move to card-based ticketing.”
While transport experts say that the NCMC is a good initiative, they stress on the need to first have a good public transport system in place and then its integration with other modes.
Transport expert Shreya Gadepalli, founder of Urban Works Institute, told ThePrint: “There is a need to focus on improving the bus network and integrating all modes of transportations. We first have to get more and more people to use the public transit system.”
According to housing ministry officials, the recently launched PM-eBus Sewa scheme provides the necessary bus transport infrastructure in cities. Under the scheme, 10,000 e-buses will be provided in 169 cities on public private partnership (PPP) model.
A third senior ministry official said: “To ensure that common mobility cards are used on buses as well, a provision has been created in the scheme under which cities will be given funds to ensure that infrastructure for the use of NCMC is in place.”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: Delhi Metro’s Phase 4 stations will let you enter using mobile phone, common mobility card
[ad_2]