27 April 2021 10:45 am Views - 430
In a groundbreaking move towards revolutionizing the transport sector, the Ministry of Transport and the Central Bank played lead roles to get the key stakeholders to sign a four-party agreement to introduce Sri Lanka Transit Card (SLTC) recently.
The SLTC initiative, which had been in the drawing board for many years will finally come to light in line with manifesto of HE the President, Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour, which proposed a single transport e-ticket system to be introduced in Sri Lanka.
The four-party agreement for the implementation of SLTC was signed amongst Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB), National Transport Commission (NTC), People’s Bank and LankaClear (Pvt) Ltd. at the Ministry of Transport on 22nd April 2021 under the distinguished patronage of Hon.
Gamini Lokuge, Minister of Transport; Dilum Amunugama, State Minister - Vehicle Regulation, Bus Transport Services and Train Compartments and Motor Car Industry, Secretaries and officials of both ministries.
Chairman SLTBKingsly Ranawaka, Chairman NTC, Sashi Welgama, GM/CEO LankaClear Channa de Silva and Senior DGM, People’s Bank, Mr. K. B. Rajapakse signed the historic agreement representing their respective organizations.
SLTC will be the first-ever 2in1 card to be introduced in Sri Lanka that comes with a unique stored-value component, in addition to debit/credit feature, built into a single chip card. This unique feature of maintaining a single card to be used across ATMs, POS machines and all transport sectors provides a citizen with the convenience of using a single card to carryout multiple modes of transactions.
In addition, it will save the government a colossal amount of money in terms of printing and distributing cards if it were implemented as a standalone transport card.
At the pilot phase, SLTC will be accepted in public and private buses in selected routes identified by the Ministry of Transport, which will be gradually extended to other routes and to Sri Lanka Railway.