NEW DELHI: Delhi Metro’s ticket-vending machines appear to be an exercise in frustration: try to buy a token or recharge a smartcard, and many of them keep rejecting currency notes of most denominations save `10 or `20.Mohit Gupta, who has sent several complaints to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation about this, alleged, “When somebody tries to recharge a smartcard, the TVM screen shows that many denominations are accepted. But when you place `200 or `500 notes in the TVM, the notes are not accepted, even though DMRC claims they are recognised by the machines.”
A check by The Sunday Standard found TVMs at Barakhamba, ITO and Civil Lines stations accept only `10 and `20 notes.Another daily commuter, Himmat, claimed, “I believe the machines were placed to help out commuters who are in a rush. During peak office hours, Metro trains are overcrowded and there are long lines at ticket counters. But, the TVMs are not only difficult to operate, they also do not accept notes other than `10 and `20. That too, if they are in a very crisp and good condition, otherwise the machine rejects that too.”
The DMRC has addressed Gupta’s complaint by saying, “Necessary software updation to accept new currency notes in TVM will be done soon.”Mohan Singh, a DMRC official in the operations department, said, “All TVMs are accepting new 500 notes for over an year now. However, the process to upgrade TVMs for new 200 notes is likely to be over by June-end. Since 200 currency notes are nit much in circulation so the testing is taking time.”