Dinesh Kamath's news item 'Auto men need to be controlled' that was published in Newsband

Auto men need to be controlled

By Dinesh Kamath

NAVI MUMBAI: It is true that the RTO squads have been doing their best to control the menace caused by the auto rickshaw drivers. But yet there are complaints from auto rickshaw passengers pouring into the RTO office.

There are some areas in Navi Mumbai where the auto drivers harass the passengers to an extent where these passengers begin feeling frustrated. The harassments are of various types. These auto drivers charge fantastic amount for even short distances. They refuse to go by electronic meters which they have been forced to install in their vehicles.  Some auto drivers just refuse to ferry the passengers. Others behave extremely rudely with the passengers. Some auto drivers make the passengers disembark in the middle of the journey and this causes a lot of inconvenience to the passengers. They are not able to find another auto rickshaw and find themselves stranded in a place they know little about.  

The thing is these auto men have a union and if the passenger dares to challenge one auto driver, then all the other auto drivers come to his rescue and the passenger finds himself or herself all alone.

There are autorickshaws with fake registration numbers. In the recent times, RTO officials have done a good job by confiscating many auto rickshaws with fake registration numbers after which they cut these vehicles into pieces and sent them to the scrap dealers or got them auctioned.

RTO has many a time issued to auto passengers warnings saying that they should be careful of auto drivers who indulge in big scale cheating. These passengers are also told to inform the RTO office the moment they are harassed by an auto driver so that RTO squad can rush to the spot and take appropriate action against the driver.

 But it has been found that in spite of stringent actions taken by RTO against the errant drivers, harassment of the passengers by these drivers continues. This is simply because of the fact that these drivers enjoy strong support of their unions.

The government had introduced electronic meter system to stop the harassments meted out to the passengers by the auto drivers. Initially many auto drivers were unwilling to install e-meter. But RTO carried out campaigns after campaigns to force each and every auto rickshaw owner to install the e-meter in their vehicles. Today we find practically every auto rickshaw in the city has e-meters. But yet in places like Kharghar and Panvel the harassments by auto driver has not ceased. There are many auto drivers who refuse to ferry passengers according to the readings on e-meter. They make their own rules and demand huge sums from passengers even for ferrying them to a destination nearby.

The defiance displayed by these auto drivers is frustrating many passengers and even the RTO officials are at a loss to know as to how these auto drivers can be brought under control. Thus the war between RTO officials and auto drivers continues.