Issue pink smart cards to women travellers, says Bharadwaj
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has expressed its disagreement with the proposal of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) in which it said that the scheme to provide free metro ride to women will take over the next six to eight months.
AAP Chief Spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said that all of us use smart cards to travel by Metro. To my mind, a simple solution to rollout the free metro for women scheme is to issue pink smart cards to women travellers.
“Of the several entry gates at every station, all that needs to be done is to reserve one gate for women travellers alone and depute a CISF jawan, home guard or a civil defense volunteer to ensure there is no misuse. This would be the only manual supervision required,” he said in a statement.
Bharadwaj said, “Only one change needs to be made to the software used in the turnstiles. The entry gates meant for male travelers should be programmed to reject pink smart cards or tokens, and the women-only turnstiles should accept any card or token so as to allow even women travelers to purchase tokens or cards if they wish to give up the subsidy.”
Offering to help DMRC in implementing the scheme, Bharadwaj said, “The software changes will not take more than two weeks and I am happy to undertake the project for DMRC without charging any fees as a public service,” he said, adding that even the deputing of personnel to prevent misuse of the pink cards can be completed within two weeks.