National Common Mobility Card (NCMC)

Q. Why is this in news?

A. Prime Minister has recently launched the ambitious National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) with the tagline of 'One Nation One Card' service for the Delhi Metro’s Airport Express Line. 

Q. What is National Common Mobility Card? 

• The idea of NCMC was floated by the Nandan Nilekani committee set up by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
• The committee had suggested that NCMC should contain two instruments – a regular debit card which can be used at an ATM and a local wallet.
• Banks mandated by the department of financial services have been asked to make their debit cards NCMC compliant, to ensure availability of service.
• The committee has also proposed a host of measures, including all payments by the government to citizens through the digital mode, to reduce the number of cash transactions in the country.

Q. What are some of key Features of the National Common Mobility Card? 

• NCMC will allow passengers with RuPay debit card, issued in the last 18 months by 23 banks, including SBI, UCO Bank, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank etc, to be swiped for Metro travel.
• It can be used at all transit locations making all new metro and transit payments interoperable via one card.
• 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.
• NCMC service is slated to cover the entire 400km stretch of Delhi Metro.
• It will allow entry and exit from Metro stations with the help of a smartphone, known as the automatic fare collection (AFC) system.
• To make AFC compliant indigenous gates for metro stations the government has engaged Bharat Electronics Limited. Eventually, all Metro stations will be fitted with AFC gates.