Metro commuters ‘inconvenienced’ by presence of ticket vending machines

Staff members at some metro stations in Delhi have been refusing to recharge smart cards due to the presence of operational ticket vending machines. Commuters have complained that their pleas are often refused by customer executive to recharge their smart cards.

A Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) official, on the condition of anonymity, said it is a move to make people accustomed to using ticket vending machines (TVMs).

Chirag Gupta, 57, who was refused by the customer care executive said, ‘I wasted half an hour at the TVM. I couldn’t do it and asked for help. They said my card was old and it won’t work with TVM. It had to be done manually eventually.’

The officer however said there is no such rule that bars a DMRC employee from manually recharging smart cards where TVM is operational. Some stations such as Huda City Centre have leaflets pasted next to token counters, which read, ‘Smart card recharge facility is available at TVM only’.

Satyam Dhama, a student said that even at Jhilmil station, the staff has put up a leaflet telling people to recharge smart cards from TVMs. ‘No doubt, TVMs have a lot of good features in a long run, but sometimes a person is in hurry and the they refuse to recharge the card.’

A DMRC spokesperson said, ‘We want people to get used to TVMs as it will help in making travel hassle-free. We have also deployed additional staff to assist people while using TVMs.’

In 2009, DMRC had installed the first set of TVMs at Barakhamba Road, Central Secretariat and Vishwavidyalaya stations. Ridership has gone up on hugely since, but installation of such machines has been put on the back burner.

‘We have installed 158 TVMs at 82 stations, of which 29 TVMs are operational in 10 stations. Only activation is required for other machines to get functional. It will take some time,’ said a DMRC spokesperson.