Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), over the next six months, has decided to equip 2500 of its buses with debit and credit card readers. KSRTC has a fleet of 8,100 buses, which caters to an estimated 2.5 million passengers daily. Of these, only 20 per cent passengers book online. According to Rajender Kumar Kataria, managing director of KSRTC, with nearly 85 per cent of cash invalidated due to demonetisation, there was a dip in fare collection by Rs. 50 lakh everyday. This prompted the undertaking to adopt a digital fare collection system. KSRTC, as a first step towards cashless way of working, deployed point-of-sale (POS) machines in 112 bus ticketing counters around the state and outside in December 2016). It is preparing tender specifications for the card swiping facility. “We are planning to procure 2,500 electronic ticketing machines, which will have both debit and credit card swiping facility as well as issue tickets through manual process,” Kataria said. In the future, he added, KSRTC’s smart card can be integrated with other modes of transport such as BMTC and Namma Metro.