kolhapur the maharashtra state road transport corporation msrtc has come up with a smart card which can be used as a debit card for purchasing bus tickets in a bid to reduce the burden on passengers travelling to the city daily from neigbhouring areas the msrtcs move is expected to benefit college students teachers and nonteaching staff especially from rural parts of the district suhas jadhav divisional controller of msrtcs kolhapur division told toi earlier passengers used to avail monthly or three monthly passes once its validity was over people had to personally visit the msrtc office to submit a fresh form and wait in long queues it was a time consuming procedure and used to keep our officers engaged for hours the msrtc observed that the use of debit cards was common among people even in rural parts hence it decided to use a similar technology the smart card is issued once with one or threemonth validity the bus conductors are also equipped with ticket vending machines having a facility to swipe cards people can simply swipe the cards and purchase tickets jadhav said it will bring down the corporations workload once the card is issued people will not have to fill in the application form after the validity is over the msrtc has sidelined the tedious procedure of applying for the pass every time the validity was over it has decided to seek detailed information of the passenger only once the card can be recharged as per the requirement he said abhay kadam officiating incharge at central bus stand said the smart card holder has to pay only rs 37 which includes the cost of the card and processing charges people having cards starting with the alphabet p are permanent card holders with threeyear validity similarly the ones holding cards starting with the alphabet t are temporary card holders with a validity of three or seven days once the usage is over the card can be recharged as per requirement the kolhapur division has so far distributed 17000 permanent and 3500 temporary cards he added vijay salunkhe a nonteaching staff member of a governmentrun school said filing the application form for the monthly pass was a time consuming process despite being a regular traveller i had to submit the form every three months with the launch of smart card all i have to do is to pay money recharge it and use it it saves a lot of time