Chandigarh – Haryana Government led by Chief Minister Sh. Manohar Lal has consistently introduced new schemes to benefit the Antyodaya families, in line with the Antyodaya philosophy. As part of this initiative, Chief Minister inaugurated the Haryana Antyodaya Parivar Parivahan Yojana (HAPPY) today. This scheme offers free travel up to 1000 kilometers for one year on Haryana Roadways buses to Antyodaya families.
In a state level program organized in district Panchkula, the Chief Minister launched the HAPPY Scheme by symbolically distributing mobility cards to 6 members of Antyodaya families. On this occasion, Antyodaya families expressed gratitude to Chief Minister Sh Manohar Lal for providing this facility.
Haryana Vidhan Sabha Speaker Sh Gian Chand Gupta, Panchkula Mayor Sh. Kulbhushan Goyal, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Sh. V Umashankar, Chief Information Commissioner Sh. Vijai Vardhan, Principal Secretary of Transport Department Sh. Navdeep Singh Virk, Panchkula Deputy Commissioner Sh Sushil Sarwan, Chief Minister's Political Advisor Sh Bharat Bhushan Bharti, Media Secretary Sh Praveen Attrey and a large number of citizens were present on this occasion.
It may be mentioned here that Chief Minister Sh. Manohar Lal, who also holds the portfolio of Finance Minister, in Budget Speech announced the Haryana Antyodaya Parivar Parivahan Yojana (HAPPY) scheme to benefit poor families to avail free travel, up to 1000 kilometres every year in Haryana Roadways Buses. Under this Yojana, the benefit of free travel will be available to 22.89 lakh families with around 84 lakh persons having annual income upto Rs one lakh. The beneficiaries would be issued a smart card linked to the e-ticketing system to enable free travel in the Haryana Roadways Buses. A sum of around Rs 600 crore is likely to be expended on the implementation of this scheme.
HAPPY is a novel scheme launched by any state in the country, where the poorest of the poor have been extended the benefit of free travel using modern technology. This has been made possible due to e-Ticketing system in Haryana Roadways buses which is based on the National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) in open loop. The beneficiaries will be given a personalized HAPPY Card, which is a special version of the NCMC Card to enable them to travel for free. This will also enable the Government to ensure the accuracy of the delivery of benefits and prevent leakages.
The initial cost of implementation of HAPPY has been estimated as about Rs 600 Crores, that includes the first-year costs. Further there will be an annual subsidization to the beneficiaries of about Rs 500 Crores every year thereafter under the yojana. Beneficiaries just have to pay a one-time cost of Rs 50 to procure the card and the balance card cost of about Rs 109 will be borne by the Government. The annual maintenance charges of the HAPPY Card amounting to Rs 79 will also be borne by the government.
Identification of beneficiaries for the yojana has been made possible by the Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP), which is a much-lauded initiative of Haryana. Application process for the HAPPY Card is transparent, simple, and to be done online, keeping in view the profile of the beneficiaries. The verification of the genuineness of the beneficiaries is done from the PPP database and has been designed to ensure that a personalized HAPPY Card is only issued to genuine beneficiaries. Upon application, the beneficiaries will be intimated about the date and place for collection of their card through an SMS, ensuring ease of living to the beneficiaries.
National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) is an inter-operable transport card conceived by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs of the Government of India. It was launched on 4 March 2019. This transport card enables the user to pay for travel, retail shopping and withdraw money. It is enabled through the RuPay card mechanism. The NCMC card is issuable as a prepaid, debit, or credit RuPay card by partnered banks. Haryana is also the first state in the country to implement NCMC Card in Open Loop on its entire fleet of State-run public transport fleet.
Haryana is first big state to implement 100% e-Ticketing in the public transport buses operated by its State Transport Undertaking, i.e Haryana Roadways.