Following a complaint by a commuter, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is going to rectify an anomaly in the smart cards it issues.
The metro’s smart card, known as Travel Card, saves commuters the hassle of queuing up to buy tokens and also offers a discount of 10 per cent on the fare. While the DMRC has been issuing these cards for over a decade, the translation error on the cards was noticed only after a commuter recently lodged a complaint with the corporation.
The words “Travel Card” appear on the top right side and “Yatri Card” in Hindi on the top left. The complainant pointed out that the word “Yatri” means passenger and not travel. Hence, the complainant said, the card should either state “Travel Card” and “Yatra Card” or “Traveller Card” and “Yatri Card”. The complainant requested the language section of the DMRC to carry out the necessary changes.
The DMRC now plans to rectify the anomaly and print “Yatra Card” instead of “Yatri Card” on its smart cards. The change, however, will not be applicable to the smart cards already issued. More than 30 lakh smart cards are in circulation at present, with nearly 70 per cent of Delhi Metro users preferring a smart card over buying tokens.
Replacing these would result in substantial loss to the DMRC. The corporation, however, plans to phase out the old smart cards gradually as passengers redeem these cards for new ones.
A DMRC spokesperson added that the new cards will be printed with the correct translation and only those would be issued to commuters in the future.
Linguistic and phonetic tangles are nothing new for the DMRC, which receives many complaints regarding station names, signages, announcements, etc.
The DMRC receives many complaints regarding station names, signages and announcements
