Title - Delhi Metro ridership touches 20 lakh.

It could be attributed to the scorching heat or the ever-increasing traffic jams in the Capital, but a combination of these factors has resulted in a huge increase in the ridership of Delhi Metro. The Metro's ridership touched 20 lakh on six days in June, with the average ridership reaching 19 lakh. In the last one month, Delhi Metro registered an increase in its overall ridership. Its average daily ridership increased from 17.88 lakh in May to 19.02 lakh in June (to date).Delhi Metro, the city's lifeline, also registered its highest-ever ridership of 20, 94,067 on June 11 this year, surpassing the earlier record of 20,83,755 set on August 12, 2011.With the number of commuters increasing each day, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) claimed it was taking a host of new measures to upgrade its amenities for commuters across the 192-km vast network. In order to ensure smoother and faster movement of commuters, DMRC will install more than 200 new automatic fare collection (AFC) gates at different Metro stations, a spokesman said.In addition, five new lifts have been installed at some Metro stations.The new AFC gates will come up at some of the most important and busiest Metro stations of the network such as Kashmere Gate, Noida City Centre, Noida Sector 15, Dilshad Garden, Laxmi Nagar etc.These busy stations witness congestion at the AFC gates during peak hours. The extra gates will help commuters quickly enter and exit the stations.The DMRC has also installed new lifts at the Patel Nagar, Chawri Bazar, Jasola and Vaishali Metro stations. Two lifts have been installed at Chawri Bazar, the deepest station in the network, the spokesman said.Apart from these measures, the exit gate leading to the New Delhi Railway station of the New Delhi Metro station, one that sees heavy crowd movement throughout the day, has been redesigned to facilitate smoother movement and avoid overcrowding.An additional customer care centre has been constructed with a segregated exit block consisting of nine AFC gates. The number of token counters has also been increased from 17 to 20.Officials said the number of token counters has also been increased at major stations. Additional customer facilitation assistants have also been deployed.