New Delhi: Soon Delhi Metro commuters will
be able to avoid standing in the queue for recharging their
smart cards with the organisation planning to introduce
refilling facility at the automatic fare collection gates.
As part of its efforts to provide cashless transactions
to commuters, the Delhi Metro is also mulling to allow
recharge of smart cards through net banking and credit and
debit cards.
To reduce the queue at stations and to allow free
movement, the Delhi Metro is procuring AFC gates with new
technologies which will have the capacity of automatic top up
of smart cards through the bank accounts of card holders via
electronic clearance system (ECS).
"By availing this facility, when the balance of a smart
card goes down to the pre-defined value or the minimum amount,
the specific AFC gates will add pre-defined amount into the
card automatically," DMRC spokesman Anuj Dayal said.
He said the deducted amount will be collected from the
card holder`s bank account by the Metro fare collection
system.
This system is aimed at not only reducing cash
transactions at the ticket counters, but also help commuters
to avoid long queues for the recharge of their cards.
On the recharge of smart card through credit and debit
cards, Dayal said a new technology is being developed to
provide DMRC commuters this facility.
"The DMRC is currently working on the finalisation of the
technologies which will be used for this facility. It is
expected that this facility will be made available to the
commuters in another seven to eight months," he said.
At present, tokens and smart cards can be purchased or
recharged only by paying cash at the specified counters,
machines or customer care centres at Metro stations.
More than 61 lakh Metro Smart cards have been sold since
the Metro came into existence nine years ago and about 12,000
smart cards are being sold each day from the Metro stations.
PTI
