One Nation, One Mobility Card’: PM Modi Launches NCMC. Know Benefits of The Card

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched the ambitious National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) service for the Delhi Metro’s Airport Express Line via video conferencing.

“The inauguration of the first driverless metro train shows how fast India is moving towards smart systems. Today Delhi Metro is being connected to the National Common Mobility Card,” PM Modi had said.

This National Common Mobility Card (NCMC), which falls under the umbrella of the Prime Minister’s ‘One Nation One Card’ initiative, enables seamless travel by metro rails and other transport systems across the country besides retail shopping and purchases.

Here’s all you need to know about NCMC:

1. 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. “This facility will become available on the entire Delhi Metro network by 2022,” a DMRC spokesperson said.

2. 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.

3. NCMC service is slated to cover the entire 400km stretch of Delhi Metro.

4. It will allow entry and exit from Metro stations with the help of a smartphone, known as the automatic fare collection (AFC) system. In the upcoming Delhi Metro Phase-IV project, the AFC system will fully accept NCMC, which can also be used in any city across the country.

5. 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.

6. The Nilekani committee had suggested that NCMC should contain two instruments – a regular debit card which can be used at an ATM and a local wallet, which can be used for contactless payments, without the need to go back to the server or additional authentication.

7. Banks mandated by the department of financial services have been asked to make their debit cards NCMC compliant, to ensure availability of service.

Talking about the Common Mobility Card, the Prime Minister had said that providing the same standards and facilities for modernization is very important. The Common Mobility Card at the national level is a major step in this direction.

This one card will give integrated access to the commuters wherever they travel, whichever public transport they take.