To address the issue of "sutte paise" (change) for Pune residents, Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd (PMPML) introduced Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payment for city buses, aiming to simplify transactions and reduce corruption.
However, passengers using PMPML buses have faced challenges with the UPI system, making it difficult to pay for tickets onboard.
PMPML has reported a total of 3561 complaints received from October 1, 2023, to March 28, 2024. Of these, 3211 complaints have been verified and forwarded to the Central Bank of India for public refunds, while 350 complaints are still being processed.
20 daily complaints
With an average of 20 complaints per day over the past 180 days, there have been a total of 2,160,427 UPI transactions on the road, resulting in a failure rate of 0.16%.
Despite efforts to streamline fare collection with an online payment system, reports have surfaced of incomplete transactions and ticket fares not crediting to the PMPML account. PMPML authorities assure that these issues have been promptly addressed, with only a few remaining cases requiring resolution.
Vijay Ranjane, Traffic Controller of IT at PMPML, stated, "It takes around 3-4 days to verify the transaction. Accordingly, after verification, we will return the amount to the passengers. All received complaints will be resolved by April 4, 2024."
