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National Common Mobility Card (NCMC)

Topics Covered: Infrastructure.

National Common Mobility Card (NCMC):.

Context:

National Common Mobility Card expanded to the Airport Express Line of Delhi Metro, which was started in Ahmedabad last year.

Key features:

  • Dubbed as ‘One Nation One Card’, the inter-operable transport card would allow the holders to pay for their bus travel, toll taxes, parking charges, retail shopping and even withdraw money.
  • The idea was floated by the Nandan Nilekani committee set up by the Reserve Bank of India.

 How it works?

NCMC is an automatic fare collection system. It will turn smartphones into an inter-operable transport card that commuters can use eventually to pay for Metro, bus and suburban railways services.

  • This card runs on RuPay card.
  • The stored value on card supports offline transaction across all travel needs with minimal financial risk to involved stakeholders.
  • Ministry of housing & urban affairs brought to the fore the National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) to enable seamless travel by different metros and other transport systems across the country besides retail shopping and purchases.

Need for and significance of NCMC:

Public transport is extensively used across India as the economical and convenient mode of commuting for all classes of society. Cash continues to be the most preferred mode of fare payments across the public transport.

  • However, there are multiple challenges associated with the cash payment such as cash handling, revenue leakages, cash reconciliation etc.
  • Various initiatives have been taken by transit operators to automate and digitize the fare collection using Automatic Fare Collection System (AFC).
  • The introduction of closed loop cards issued by these operators helped to digitize the fare collection to a significant extent. However, the restricted usability of these payment instruments limits the digital adoption by customers.

InstaLinks:

Prelims Link:

  1. What is NCMC?
  2. Recommended by?
  3. What is RuPay platform?
  4. Services included under NCMC.

Mains Link:

Discuss the significance of NCMC.

Sources: PIB.