Mumbai: BEST says a final no to paper tickets

BEST members said the administration should try to revive smart cards and ticketing machines and that when all other public utilities were opting for advanced systems, why should the BEST be going back to paper tickets

The BEST committee on Tuesday rejected, outright, the proposal to print more old-style paper tickets, saying the administration would have to find a way to revive digital ticketing machines that were being phased out after many of them developed defects.

BEST members said the administration should try to revive smart cards and ticketing machines and that when all other public utilities were opting for advanced systems, why should the BEST be going back to paper tickets.

BEST officials said they had a stock of one month of paper ticket sales, but wanted permission to print more tickets and keep them ready as a back-up. BEST committee member Sunil Ganacharya said the committee had already approved the purchase of more digital ticket machines back in 2016, so what was it waiting for. "They should go ahead and procure more machines instead of falling back on paper tickets like this," he said.

The administration has been claiming that BEST will be buying new ticket machines that are enabled with the single-mobility-card facility that may be introduced in the city in some time and which could be used for all modes of transport.

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