Two months since the entire stretch of the Purple Line of Namma Metro became functional, commuters on Thursday took to social media to vent their frustration over the unavailability of smart cards at the stations.
These pre-paid cards are helpful for passengers, as they don’t have to stand in queue to buy the tokens each time they travel. Several stations have run out of stock of smart cards, and customer care employees at the stations say fresh consignment would take at least 10 days to arrive at some stations.
Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (BMRCL) has sold more than 1.5 lakh smart cards after the commissioning of the Purple Line.
Commuters are also upset about online recharging. Top-ups are currently being routed through the KarnatakaOne website and around 200-400 people are using the system online every day.
U.A. Vasanth Rao, spokesperson, BMRCL, denied that smart cards are not available. He said, “There is no shortage of cards. It might have existed on a particular day at a station but this will be dealt with immediately.”
BMRCL officials said the ratio of people using smart cards to those buying tokens is 49 per cent to 51 per cent.
This is a massive increase from the earlier percentage, which was around 30 before the launch of the entire Purple Line.
