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 NCMC (National Common Mobility Card), 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.

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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 are 10 important things you must know about the NCMC card:

  1. The National Common Mobility Card or NCMC is an open-loop card, which can be used for all local travel needs in the country. 
  2. NCMC is an inter-operable automatically operable transport card conceived by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs of the Government of India. “
  3. It was launched on 4 March 2019 and enables the user to pay for low-value payments for various segments e.g. Transit, Smart cities, Toll, Parking, and other low-value merchant payments, in addition to the normal day-to-day retail payments. 
  4. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs of the Government of India (MoHUA) has further informed that there is the provision of storing money on the card (in the Global Wallet or Card Wallet).
  5. The Global Wallet app in the phone can be used for contactless payments across various facilities like toll transit, parking, etc. 
  6. The idea of NCMC was floated by the Nandan Nilekani committee set up by the Reserve Bank of India. NCMC will allow passengers with RuPay debit cards, 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.
  7. 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.
  8. The NCMC facility will become available on the entire Delhi Metro network by 2022. NCMC service will cover the entire 400km stretch of Delhi Metro
  9. NCMC will allow entry and exit from Metro stations with the help of a smartphone, known as the automatic fare collection (AFC) system.
  10. Concerned banks have been asked to make their debit cards NCMC compliant, to ensure availability of service.