What if you can own a card that not only works to pay for metros, but parking and even shopping too? The One Nation, One Card smart card launched this week claims to do exactly that.
This is a contactless smart card, which can be used across different platforms that includes transport, banking and retail. This means that the card can be used for transactions at ATMs for withdrawal of money. In addition to this, you can even use it for paying toll and parking charges as well.
The One Nation, One Card (ONOC) is India’s first indigenously-developed National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) and will be available from across 25 banks to people in the country.
The cards, especially at various metro stations and toll booths will rely on other indigenously developed technologies like automatic fare collection gate Swagat and Open loop automatic fare collection system called Sweekar.
Snapshot
What Can You the One Nation One Card For?
- ONOC can be used like debit/credit or prepaid card
- It is a RuPay card which will be available across 25 banks, including State Bank of India (SBI)
- You can pay for metro/bus rides and even suburban railway tickets
- The smart card can pay for toll and parking as well
- You can avail cashbacks on bill payment
- While shopping abroad, users stand to get 5 percent cash back at ATMs and 10 percent cash back at merchant outlets
- Users can even get hold of monthly passes for using transport services
Representational image of Delhi Metro.(Photo: iStock)
While the project does sound interesting and offers convenience to people, to pull off this service across the country can be challenging. Which is why we expect the support for payment via this card to start from the top five or even ten cities first, and gradually roll out in more parts of the country.
Also, there’s no mention of how much this card will cost and whether a person can exchange his current metro travel card (with either of these 25 banks) for the ONOC. Delhi Govt has already rolled out a similar card, but it’s limited to transport services in Delhi such as metro and buses.