BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) on Tuesday floated tender for implementation of Common Payment Card System (CPCS) which will provide the citizens with payment options for services such as parking and public transport which are offered by agencies like Public Health Engineering Organsation (PHEO) and Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU).
The proposed CPCS can be used to travel in City-based transport system, pay Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) bills, purchase goods from retail stores, pay for movie tickets, dine and shop within the City. The last date for submission of bid is March 21. The project will be completed within six months from the commencement of work.
With about 2.5 lakh households, the State Capital is expected to witness around 30 million payment transactions for municipal services by 2018.
General Manager (Operations), BSCL Binay Dash said with CPCS in place, emphasis will be laid on cashless and digital transactions. “The design will be cost-effective, sustainable, technology-based and accessible to citizens across varied economic segments,’’ he said.
BSCL will implement an inter-operable payment ecosystem through cards and mobile phones. The concessionaire will have to manage supply of smart cards and infrastructure for distribution of the cards in coordination with utility companies like Bhubaneswar Puri Transport Services Limited (BPTSL), CESU and PHEO and retail units, Dash said.
The private partner (bank or financial institution) will also work on creation of infrastructure which involves integration of the smart cards with access terminals including seamless adoption of card on retail payment gateways - Europay, MasterCard, Visa and Rupay enabled terminals - at specific locations.
The work will be carried out in PPP mode where the concessionaire will be entrusted with establishing a smart card host management system and operating a central clearance house. It will also design, market and deploy customised citizen loyalty programmes with an objective to maximise the penetration and use of the Common Payment card.
On December 16 last year, the BSCL had organised a pre-tender workshop on developing a CPCS in which 17 banking organisations including six public sector banks and three mobile banking organisations had participated.