NCMC: An Open Letter To NPCI And Several Transport Operators

This is a quasi-continuation of the previous post All You Need To Know About The National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) where I had mentioned about ‘Exclusive’ NCMCs.

It was Saturday, 16 March 2024. I walked into the Vanaz metro station in Pune, asked the Customer Care if my NCMC would work (they said yes) and then crossed security. When I swiped my card at the turnstile, it refused to work. I tried multiple times and it still didn’t work. I then walked back to the counter and was asked to show my card. Back then I was using an RBL Bank issued Namma Metro NCMC from Bangalore. On seeing my card, the customer care agent curtly replied, “This card won’t work. You need to get our NCMC”. I know, it didn’t make sense then and it doesn’t make sense even now. Eventually I settled on buying a ticket to PMC Bhavan so that I’d take a bus back. I was originally planning to try out both lines but now I’d have to buy different tickets, instead of just swiping in and out as I had originally planned. Totally dampened my spirits and left me unable to even enjoy the Titagarh Firema trains that I had been looking forward to ever since they released the first render. To make matters worse, it turns out that when I tried to pay for my tickets using UPI, it didn’t work on either Amazon Pay or MobiKwik. Yeah, I’m not big on GPay or PhonePe. Eventually I settled for paying in cash. It seems Mahametro was pulling out all the stops to ensure that all the interoperability that the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) strived to ensure under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious Digital India mission would fail. The interesting thing was that barely a month ago, one Bhaumik Gowande had shared on Twitter (now X) that he had successfully used his HDFC Bank-issued Pune Metro NCMC on the Delhi Metro. Eventually I confirmed with multiple people that no other card worked on the Pune Metro. Two days later, I was in Mumbai where I used the same RBL Bank NCMC without issues on Mumbai Metro’s Line 1 and Line 7 as well as on a BEST Bus.

This has been a total disappointment so far since I’m the guy who used to travel a lot between Mumbai and Pune and I always got off at Chembur and made my way to Ghatkopar before heading to Andheri by metro. The metro would seem to be the obvious choice coming back to Pune as well. If I caught a bus heading to Pune Station via Pimpri-Chinchwad, I’d get down at PCMC Bhavan, if Swargate via Chandani Chowk then at Vanaz. I sincerely hope that the PMRDA/Pune IT City Metro Rail/Tata-Siemens line does not do the same mistake since a lot of people would get off at Bhujbal Chowk and take the metro to either Hinjewadi or the rest of Pune City.

Over the next few months, I heard that the issue was there even on Nagpur Metro, another MahaMetro Line. This got me thinking and after reaching out to a few more friends, I unearthed more. It wasn’t just Pune and Nagpur but also Kochi and Noida for metro and Ahmedabad and Surat for buses.

Then I stumbled upon NPCI’s list of live members and everything made sense. Noida’s City1, Ahmedabad’s Janmitra, Surat’s SuratMoney, Kochi’s Kochi1, Nagpur’s MahaCard and Pune’s OnePune Card were all ‘exclusive NCMCs”, although that makes no sense. That’s neither National, nor Common. Or, to quote someone who replied to me when I was ranting about my Pune experience, NCMC in these cities stood for “Nahi chalega, M*****c***”.

Now, just imagine the irony of this. The NCMC in its current form was launched six years ago, coincidentally on my birthday, by the BJP government and was promoted extensively as ‘One Nation, One Card’ everywhere. The RBL Namma Metro NCMC from Bangalore in fact even says these four words on the front of the card. Of the six cities where this exclusivity is seen, five of them are in BJP-ruled states. Oh, the delicious irony. I’ve already explained why this is a bad idea for the Mumbai-Pune belt already but here me out.

In Noida, as part of the National Capital Region (NCR), there are three metro systems adjacent to it that accept NCMC – Delhi Metro, RapidX, Rapid Metro Rail Gurgaon (RMRG). You can count Delhi Metro twice if you want to count the Airport Express line as independent and skip RMRG since it is practically a part of Delhi Metro since IL&FS went bankrupt. It gets worse considering that in the near future, the Meerut Metro will open up and since it is an extension of RapidX, you can use the NCMC there with a breeze but just not in Noida and Greater Noida.

Now come down to Amdavad where the Gujarat Metro Rail Corp (GMRC, formerly MEGA) accepts any NCMC across its network. But the Janmitra Card, issued by the Ahmedabad Smart City Corporation through ICICI Bank is the only card that works on the Janmarg BRTS, AMTS buses, and for entry at Kankaria Lake and the Sabarmati Riverfront. So you still need to carry two cards here.

Surat remains fairly fine in the current scenario but once the Mumbai-Amdavad HSR line opens up, and the Surat Metro as well, what will happen? People will be traveling a lot between these cities and it will be the repeat of the Mumbai-Pune debacle. Kochi, alone remains fairly isolated in this mess but I’ve been told that Axis Bank requires you to go through the entire KYC process once a year. Ironically one transit fan once made fun of me saying Kochi was the first to launch NCMC and Mumbai and Bangalore had a lot of catching up to do. That must be stinging him today.

Further, what if this causes existing transport operators who accept any NCMC to start accepting only their own NCMC?

So, to NPCI, MahaMetro, Noida Metro Rail Corp, Kochi Metro Rail Corp, Amdavad and Surat Municipal Corporations, can we set aside this nonsense and truly embrace a common mobility card? One that works everywhere? One that doesn’t need me to buy your card when I have a perfectly functioning card already? My current Airtel Payments Bank Card has successfully been used on six systems as of now – Mumbai Metro One, Maha Mumbai Metro, BEST buses, Bangalore’s Namma Metro, Chennai Metro and MTC buses. As I travel, I will be using the card on other systems that support any and all NCMCs.

The very concept of an ‘exclusive NCMC’ beats the very concept of the card itself. I hope the NPCI and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), the implementing agency for the NCMC take note of this to make things easier for commuters.