The Road Transport Office's ongoing drive to eliminate the use of misleading metres by auto rickshaw drivers in Mumbai has, of late, surfaced as a successful campaign. In the last two weeks, RTO officials challaned more than 500 violators and imposed fines to the tune of Rs. 12 lacs in totality; the highest collection ever by the RTO in such a short period.
According to a source, the campaign that has come down heavily on auto drivers has forced them to get back on track. Eventually, the 90 authorised metre servicing shops in the city were inundated with demands of repairing the improperly functioning metres. One of the drivers who were present at a metre servicing shop said: "I was tempted to make money illegally. Sometime ago I got my meter rigged by paying Rs. 250 to a repairer. But now I want to get the device repaired."
The campaign did not start off according to the expectations as the first four days of the drive saw 40 drivers being caught in the net. However the spree began to taste success as days passed by. It must be noted that out of the 504 drivers that were fined, 413 have been accused of metre tampering whereas 91 were charged for not travelling over short distances.
According to an RTO official, it was found that 90% of the auto drivers that were challaned had affixed metres that displayed 10% to 35% exaggerated figures. Moreover, a few drivers illegally boosted the readings on the device upwards by 80%. "These meters have been sent to government-approved laboratories for tests," the official said.
Thus, such drives aid immensely in hunting down errant drivers and motivate passengers to raise their voice against those who take the law for granted.
