Telangana govt to launch 'One Telangana Card' for travel needs

The Telangana government has invited bids for designing and implementing the 'One Telangana Card', a smart card ecosystem, which can be used for payment related to travel services in the state, a senior government official said Friday.

Principal secretary of IT and Industries Jayesh Ranjan said the common card system was aimed at integrating the payments related to travel services availed of by the residents and visitors in Hyderabad Metro Rail, Telangana State Road Transport Corporation buses, Hyderabad Multi-Modal Transport System, autorickshaws, Ola, Uber cabs and others within the state.

This is a state government initiative. We are looking for a consortium to participate in this project. The consortium should have a bank or financial institution as one of the partners. There has to be payment clearing house. There has to be a vendor who will supply machines (to read smart cards)," the official told PTI.

Dubbed as 'one nation, one card', Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the indigenously-developed National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) in March to enable people to pay multiple kinds of transport charges, including metro services and toll tax, across the country.

"The Centre has also announced NCMC. We have decided that we will go ahead with our own card and as and when some national card is launched we will integrate ours with it," Ranjan further said.

The successful bidder is expected to manage the implementation of smart card payments ecosystem, including the required hardware, software, network infrastructure, and related interfaces and should be able to manage the interfaces to Hyderabad Metro Rail, Hyderabad MMTS, TSRTC bus network necessary for the implementation of Common Card Mobility Project in the city, the request for proposal (RFP) document said.

A senior official of Telangana State Technological Services which had issued RFP from prospective bidders said pre-bid meeting was held in June first week.

The bidding would be closed by July 15.