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Travel on the Delhi Metro and its feeder buses just got easier today with the launch of common mobility card ‘More Delhi’, which can also be used in DTC buses and taxis across the national Capital in the coming months.
‘More Delhi’, a card which aims at making travel in Delhi cashless, can be used by commuters for travel on Metro trains and select feeder buses to start with.
In the next six months, the card, which will slowly replace the Delhi Metro’s most-famous Smart Cards, can be used on Delhi Transport Corporation buses, taxis and parking lots in the Capital.
‘More Delhi’ is part of the Union Urban Development Ministry’s long-term plans to come out with a single card for travel across the country.
Launching the card, Union Urban Development Secretary Sudhir Krishna said in Phase-II, the ‘More Delhi’ card can be used anywhere across the country for travel on Metro trains.
Existing smart card users can also travel on feeder buses using their contact-less cards, which automatically becomes a smart card.
“Eventually, we will be selling ‘More’ cards and not ‘Smart cards’,” Delhi Metro chief Mangu Singh said.
Sixty-five per cent of the 18 lakh metro passengers are estimated to use smart cards every day.
Krishna said talks with the Delhi Government on the issue of allowing ‘More cards’ on their buses are on. “We expect that these cards would be used on buses in the next five to six months,” he said.
The feeder buses and other vehicles which will accept the card will have hand-held devices which have been developed with a dedicated software at a low cost for the purpose.
Singh said the Delhi Metro was planning to introduce topping up of ‘More’ and ‘Smart’ cards through credit card and debit cards and that talks with banks are on in this regard.
Krishna admitted that the delay in the development of software and the high cost of hand-held devices were some of the reasons for the project seeing the light of day after it was announced last year.
The ‘More card’ can also be used at the Rapid Metro of Gurgaon, Singh said.
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