Bus passengers give thumbs down to BMTC’s UPI payment facility

Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation

BMTC

conductors

UPI payment

ETMs

UPI

Vaju Vajra

online payments

The passengers of) have complained thatare refusingfor tickets. According to the commuters, the electronic ticketing machines () issued to conductors have not been functioning properly.Since Monday, commuters have been struggling to make payments for their tickets as the ETMs have been dysfunctional. According to the commuters, the conductors have been instructed by BMTC officials to not allowpayment.According to Girish, a commuter on the KIA15 bus, the conductors have been asked not to issue payment via the UPI method. “I have been facing the issue since Monday. I travel daily on the KIA15 () from Vyedhi to the airport. The ETMs that are used to scan for UPI payments are showing an error. Conductors say that they are not able to tally the fare,” he added. As per the screenshot shared by the commuter, the error appears on the Canara Bank page, stating, ‘An error occurred while trying to establish a secure connection. Please try again later.’ BMTC has a tie-up with Canara Bank for the ETMs.Amogh, a member of Friends of BMTC, told BM that the BMTC crew also told them that they had been issued instructions to not allow. “The servers of the BMTC ETMs are not working. When the ETM application is being opened to scan for the payments, it shows an error. BMTC officials have asked conductors not to issue online payments. Conductors say that with the error, they are not able to verify the processing of the payment,” he added.Nearly all BMTC buses are equipped with the feature allowing for online payments. BMTC has around 6,132 buses operating across Bengaluru, with nearly 30 lakh passengers travelling through them. However, BMTC officials denied facing any issues. “We are not facing any server issues within BMTC,” said a senior BMTC official.