Delhi Metro Commuters Can Now Recharge Smart Cards via 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 their mobile number registered with the account.

To avail the facility, the passenger needs to send the SMS in the format: . The card engraved ID is written on the backside 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 Delhi Metro stations, and insert the smart card at an add value machine (AVM) installed near a customer care centre in order to complete the add value process.

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

The Delhi Metro smart card top-up or recharge facility through SMS was inaugurated at the Barakhamba Road Metro station on Thursday 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 inserting 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, and credit/ debit/ net banking using dmrcsmartcard.com.

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