eGovWatch: Now, recharge metro smart card through SMS

Delhi metro commuters, who have an account with ICICI bank with a registered mobile number, can now top-up their travel smart cards by sending an SMS.

“The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation today launched the top up facility of Metro smart cards. With this new facility, the commuters will now be able to top up their smart cards by sending an SMS to 9222208888,” said DMRC Executive Director (corporate communications) Anuj Dayal.

The recharge through SMS, however, can only be done by passengers who have an account with ICICI bank with his/her mobile number registered with the account.

To avail the facility, the passenger needs to send the SMS in the format: DMRC <space> Card Engraved ID <space> Amount <space> last six digit of ICICI Bank account. The card engraved ID is written on the back side of the smart card, and the maximum permissible amount currently is Rs 1,000.

Once the SMS is processed, the passenger will get a confirmatory message from ICICI bank.

After this, the passenger will need to go to one of the 71 Metro stations, show the Smart Card at Add Value Machine (AVM) installed near Customer Care Centre of these Metro stations in order to complete the add value process.

Till date, a total of 147 AVMs are installed at 71 Metro stations which includes 14 stations of Line-1, 15 stations of Line-2, 33 stations of Line-3/4, 3 stations of Line-5 and 6 stations of Line-6.

The top up facility through SMS was inaugurated at the Barakhamba Road Metro station today by DMRC’s Managing Director Mangu Singh, who got the first top up done through SMS in his personal smart card by sending the SMS and then completing the add value process by showing the card at the AVM at the station.

DMRC has partnered with ICICI Bank for this SMS Top-Up facility.

In the past one year, Delhi Metro has already launched several ways to facilitate easy top-up of smart cards to avoid queues and save time at stations.

This includes option of smart card top-up using Cash/Credit/Debit card at Counter, Credit/Debit/Net banking using dmrcsmartcard.com.

Presently, about 70 per cent of the Metro commuters use smart cards. Approximately, 16,000 smart cards are sold every day from the various stations of the network.