‘One nation, one mobility card’: All you need to know about NCMC

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched the ambitious National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) service for the Delhi Metro’s Airport Express Line. This latest inauguration falls under the umbrella of the Prime Minister’s ‘One Nation One Card’ initiative. NCMC can be used at all transit locations making all new metro and transit payments interoperable via one card.

The idea of NCMC was floated by the Nandan Nilekani committee set up by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The five-member committee under Nilekani, the former chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI) 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.

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.