The NDMC is planning to introduce its own prepaid smart card for paying electricity bills, licence fees and parking charges at shopping malls under its jurisdiction.
An official said the civic agency is also in talks with market associations to explore the possibility of accepting the card for giving customers discounts on each transaction.
The smart cards, also known as ‘payment cards’, could also be used at water ATMs set up by the New Delhi Municipal Council. The project is still in a nascent stage.
The agency is in talks with various banks and traders’ associations to make the rechargeable card multipurpose.
“A person would not want to have a single card just for making payments to the NDMC. So in order to make it a multipurpose card, we are having discussions with various banks, mercantile associations, market traders’ associations and brands to provide discounts to the customers,” an NDMC official said.
“The civic body gives discount to the customers paying bills online and additional rebates to people who do not take the hard copies of their bills. Thus, discounts on these cards would further help people residing in the NDMC jurisdiction,” the official added.
The civic body is also going to issue smart cards to its employees with information such as their medical and pension records.
It has already issued smart cards to licensed hawkers in its jurisdiction. These have security features like a bar code and RFID tag which help differentiate between authorised and unauthorised vendors.
Meanwhile, NDMC is also planning to set up kiosks at hospitals on a trial basis. The patients would be given a slip with their registration number. They can fix up appointments, including for yellow fever vaccination, through them.
“We are planning to install four-five kiosks at NDMC hospitals and, depending on the response, further steps would be taken,” the official said.
A similar kiosk, which is set up at the NDMC headquarters, is being used to pay electricity and water bills by residents who do not have internet at home.
The users can also avail a rebate of Rs 25 through this mode of payment. More such kiosk might come up for people without the internet facility.