National Common Mobility Cards (NCMCs), which can be used in multiple cities for parking, shopping and transportation, will finally be available to Chennai Metro users by the end of December.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs launched the service three years ago as part of the “One Nation One Card” initiative to allow motorists to use it to pay for travel on metros, city buses and suburban trains, as well as parking fees.
What is a national joint mobility card?
The National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) is an interoperable transport card that was launched on 4 March 2019. This transport card allows users to pay for travel, tolls (tolls), retail purchases and withdraw money. NCMC is enabled through the RuPay card mechanism and is a prepaid, debit or credit card from partner banks such as State Bank of India, Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and others.
Globally, there is now only one national standard transit system card, which is in Singapore. However, they have significant drawbacks, such as how it lags in integrating existing equipment with new ones. The Smart National Shared Mobility Card introduced in India, which is considered an improved version of the one offered in Singapore, is said to address the shortcomings and provide an improved solution.
Card features
The NCMC is a versatile card used for transportation, shopping and other ancillary purposes. Card will be an open, prepaid system that adheres to EMV standards.
NPCI will participate in network construction, terminal development, payment clearing and settlement, and other program management services, while C-DAC will create hardware and standards for metro gates and validators.
System ready
Only new users will receive NCMC initially, and drivers will still be able to use their current travel cards. An identity document is required to obtain the card. According to The Hindu, the official stated that the banks’ problems would be resolved within a month; so the card would have been introduced around then.
The National Payments Corporation of India has issued a certificate to CMRL confirming the availability of the infrastructure required to launch the card. It is envisaged that commuters will only need to carry one card to pay fares after suburban railways and MTCs also introduce their cards.
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