Mangaluru: City buses in Mangaluru are all set to go cashless from June 1 onwards. The bus owners are planning to introduce “smart card” for passengers to bring down the usage of cash.
Over 350 city buses ply on different routes across the city. It is already two months since the lockdown was announced and the city buses stopped operations.
With a slew of relaxations offered by the state government recently, the city buses are planning to return on the road from June 1 onwards and for the convenience of the passengers and the crew members, the smart card will be in place.
The passenger, who has the smart card can hand over the card to the conductor, who will swipe the same over an Electric Ticketing Machine and extract the fare. The amount will be deducted from the e-wallet.
Smart card centres will be in place to issue these cards. After receiving these cards, the passengers will have to recharge the cards at mobile phone recharge shops.
City Bus Owners’ Association President Dilraj Alva said that it is a significant step towards digitalisation of services.
“Over 10,000 smart cards have already been produced and it will be disbursed to the public,” he informed.
