UD Ministry comes out with Smart National Common Mobility Card model

New Delhi, September 02, 2015: The Ministry of Urban Development has come out with a Smart National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) model to enable seamless travel by different metros and other transport systems across the country besides retail shopping and purchases. Minister of Urban Development Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu has approved the ‘EMV Open Loop Card with stored value’ in this regard.

Following the failure of an earlier effort to come out with such an inter-operable mobility card, Shri Venkaiah Naidu set up a Committee last year under the chairmanship of Additional Secretary(UD) to recommend a card which is inter-operable across different transport systems in the country and which can also be used as a credit/debit card. This Committee had representatives of National Informatics Centre (NIC), Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC), Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), National Payment Corporation of India (NCPI) and the Ministry of Finance.

After extensive study of various models being followed across the world, the Committee has recommended the EMV Open Loop Card with stored value based model and the same was approved by Shri Venkaiah Naidu.

This Smart Common Mobility Payment Card addresses the deficiencies associated with other cards being used in Singapore and other countries. This card meets travel needs based on stored value of money and can be used for travelling by any means of transport and also enables account based retail applications. Accordingly, this card does away with the need for carrying separate cards for banking and transit requirements.

Some of the other models examined include Closed Loop Solution like the Octopus cards in Hong Kong which are limited to using for travel only. The other model of EMV Open Loop Account based model suffers from the limitations of not supporting weekly, monthly, student passes etc., and not facilitating checking for ticketless travel, collection of fines etc., besides increased costs of robust backend systems required for operation.

Globally, there is no nationwide common card except in Singapore where in inter-operability is confined to city only. The Committee, hence, recommended EMV Open Loop Card with stored value for use across the country.

The Urban Development Ministry has decided to task the National Payments Corporation of India with indigenous development and management of Clearing and Settlement of payments, Simulating Cards, Terminals and network, a support base of vendors for providing certified tools, cards, terminals and other services. This is in line with the ‘Make in India’ initiative.

C-DAC will develop the standards and hardware for Metro gates/validators along with related ecosystems. Funding of Rs.4.47 cr also has been approved in this regard. Certification and authentication mechanism will be developed by NPCI or any other government agency.

Shri Venkaiah Naidu has directed the Ministry officials to ensure time bound and coordinated progress in this regard by various agencies to ensue early introduction of Smart Mobility Cards and also to inform the States of this initiative for taking appropriate action for integration of other systems with the new smart card.