In one year, Mumbaikars will be able to travel seamlessly using multiple modes of transport, after a long-standing issue between the Railways and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority over the integrated ticketing system (ITS) was resolved on Thursday.
Metropolitan Commissioner, R.A. Rajeev, said, “We were planning to extend the deadline of the tenders, which is under process due to our disagreements with the Railways. Since this has been resolved, we will soon finalise a contract. The entire system will take around a year to implement.”
In the joint meeting with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union Minster for Railway Piyush Goyal, it was decided that the ITS will have both an account-based system and store value features. Officials said MMRDA wanted the card to be purely account-based, highlighting that countries such as England were moving towards a similar system.
The Railways, however, wanted the card to have a store value component in addition to the account-based system as they felt that under Indian conditions, it would work better. R.S. Khurana, Chairman and Managing Director, Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation, said, “It was decided that the card will be both account-based and have store value. We will continue to have discussions regarding the execution of the project.”
Senior railway officials said while the decision to include both features was taken in the meeting, it is yet to be decided which feature they will use for ticketing purposes. “Our basic demand was that the system should have a provision of store value. In case the account-based system develops issues, at least we would have a back-up,” a senior railway official said.
Railway officials said the combination of the two systems is also specified under the National Common Mobility Card. Officials said the future course will depend on the directions of the Niti Aayog, which is expected to issue new guidelines regarding NCMCs in a fortnight.
The ITS will include all major public transport operators within the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. The debit or credit card will be issued by a bank.
MMRDA is responsible for setting up the umbrella system to which individual operators will be linked. This includes setting up the clearing house as well as deciding the banks that will issue these cards.
