Embracing the Digital India mission, North West Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NWKRTC) has started accepting UPI payment to buy tickets on board buses as a pilot project.
NWKRTC has partnered with PhonePe to introduce UPI based ticketing system. The pilot project is being done in one of the depots under the jurisdiction of NWKRTC.
NWKRTC MD Bharath Selvan said, “Further roll-out of UPI-based ticketing system on board buses will depend on the response of the public and the NWKRTC staff”.
As of now, only Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) is accepting UPI as a mode of payment to buy tickets on board BMTC buses in Karnataka.
However, the facility is limited to a few AC buses like Vajra and Vayu Vajra (Airport services). Other RTCs like KSRTC and KKRTC (formerly NEKRTC) are yet to introduce UPI-based ticketing system.
Most of the time, the ticket fares are not rounded off. That necessitates commuters to carry exact change to buy tickets which may not be possible at all times.
In many instances, if commuters do not have exact fare conductors write change in the backside of the ticket which needs to be collected while getting down from the bus.
However, people often fail to collect the change while deboarding in a hurry. The UPI-based ticketing system is likely to solve the issue making travel hassle-free for the commuters.
A tweet made by NWKRTC MD Bharath Selvan on X/Twitter is getting widespread appreciation from the public. Many have thanked him for introducing cashless payment in NWKRTC.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions, for the first time, crossed 10 billion mark in August, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said on Thursday.
UPI is a real-time payment system developed by the NPCI, an umbrella organisation for all retail payment systems in India.
The UPI transactions on August 30 stood at 10.24 billion. In value terms, the transaction had totalled ₹ 15,18,456.4 crores, according to data shared by the NPCI on Twitter.