Still no online payment for HRTC bus tickets

Navneet Rathore
Tribune News Service
Shimla, July 31
Passengers are not able to avail of the cashless UPI payment service that the Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) had launched in its buses with much fanfare earlier this year.
They complain that when they boarded HRTC buses recently the conductors told them that the online payment service for tickets was not available. The conductors even claimed that the service had not yet been started. The passengers also complain that many a time the conductors misbehaved with them and even told them to leave the bus.
Abhay Verma, Nitika and Kamlesh, all of them students, say, “We were to travel to Shimla from Kangra and had asked an HRTC bus conductor for tickets. We offered to pay for the tickets online as we were not carrying much cash but the bus conductor told us that the online payment service was not available. We went to a nearby bank ATM to withdraw cash but the bus left by that time. We had some urgent work in Shimla and so we booked a taxi for Rs 6,500.”
Another passenger Manish Sharma says that recently, he boarded an HRTC bus from Solan to Shimla but the conductor refused to accept online payment for the ticket saying the service was not available. He adds that while the UPI payment is not being accepted in HRTC buses, the service is available in private buses.
Shashi Shanker, a resident of Sundernagar in Mandi, missed an HRTC bus to Dharamsala recently, as all seats were booked by the time he returned to pay for the ticket by cash withdrawn from an ATM after the conductor didn’t accept the online payment. Another student Hitesh Thakur has a similar story to narrate.
Meanwhile, HRTC officials say that the online payment service is available in its buses and they have not received any complaint that the conductors are demanding cash payments for tickets.