Hubballi headquartered North Western Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NWKRTC) will extend UPI payment as a mode to buy bus tickets throughout its jurisdiction soon.
NWKRTC MD Bharath Selvan said “NWKRTC will roll out UPI payment in all buses across 6 districts within February. A formal launch of UPI payment initiative happened at Gadag yesterday.
Embracing the Digital India mission, NWKRTC started accepting UPI payments in September 2023 as a mode to buy tickets in the buses operated by NWKRTC.
The move gained widespread positive response from the travellers. Since then, as many as 1 lakh UPI transactions have been performed generating a revenue of more than ₹2 Crores.
NWKRTC started accepting UPI payments in the buses operated by Hubballi Mofussil-3 depot as a pilot project. The move quickly gained traction as more than 6000+ transactions were done in just 20 days.
NWKRTC selected Hubballi M-3 depot as it had better-trained crew and high-value tickets. The depot was selected as it is found to have higher Digital literacy amongst others.
The move enabled NWKRTC to expand the facility to 450 buses operated by the Hubballi division. NWKRTC has partnered with PhonePe to accept UPI payments in its buses.
Also read: NWKRTC starts Pallakki buses from Hubballi and Shirdi.
PhonePe has provided QR code scanners to the conductors where passengers can scan the QR code to complete the payment. PhonePe has also set up a dashboard at Hubballi headquarters to track payments.