New Delhi, Sep 2 (UNI) In yet another step towards facilitating its commuters, the Delhi Metro has now simplified the process for reclaim of those smart cards which are not readable
at the time of entry at AFC gates due to some technical reasons.
Such physically OK unreadable cards, which were earlier deposited at the station and needed to be reclaimed after five days will now be immediately replaced with a new smart card at the customer care centre of the Metro station free of cost, a DMRC spokesperson said on Sunday.
The commuter has the option to top it up (recharge) as per his requirement for the
journey or may use alternate card or token available with him/her.
Earlier, when a passenger used to face this rare problem of unreadable smart card he/she
was required to deposit the card at the station for technical redressal and then required to
visit the same station after five days to reclaim that card with balance amount in it.
At times, it required more than five days and multiple visits to the same station to reclaim
such cards for some unforeseen reasons.
This new process of dealing with unreadable cards now eliminates the inconvenience
caused to commuter in terms of wastage of time by visiting the same station after five days
and repeated human interface which was there till now in reclaiming the unreadable cards.
With the adoption of new process, one gets an entirely new smart card issued at the station
after handing over the physically OK unreadable card.
After five days and upto a period of 90 days, the commuter can then tap his/her this new smart
card at any of the AVM installed at all the Metro stations and the balance amount of his/her
unreadable card will be automatically credited into this new card and the need to visit same station
no more exits.
Presently, about 70 per cent of Metro commuters use Smart Cards for their daily Metro journey and
a flat 10 per cent discount is provided on each journey and additional 10 per cent discount is also
provided if the journey is performed by entering in the Metro system during defined off-peak hours.
The reason for a smart card becoming 'unreadable' is disturbance to its circuitry which may result from inappropriate handling of the card like too much pressing/bending when placed in
wallet/pockets, placing on hot surfaces etc.
Presently, around 2.20 crore smart cards are in circulation, of which around 600 cards are reported 'Unreadable' on an average per day, of which over 30 per cent cases of unreadability are due to physical damage to the card caused by users due to mishandling.
A five day processing period is the minimum time required to sort out the unreadable cards
as it involves multi tier online/offline processes.
UNI NY JA 1232