With commuters in the national capital continuing to complain about auto drivers demanding fares arbitrarily, the Delhi transport department has decided to link the trip meters with GPS.
This means that the government can track the exact location of the autos on its dashboard through the transport department’s website and also keep an eye on the number of trips made daily. The department will levy fines on the violators.
A senior official of the transport department said the linking of trip meters with GPS would allow them to track their movement in real time and also keep a tab on trip status. He said the department already had access to the technology developed by DIMTS to track location, trip status and the fare charged, but it was not being used since the outbreak of the Covid pandemic.
“DIMTS had developed the technology, but before it could be comprehensively implemented, the Covid outbreak happened and many autorickshaw drivers stopped using it,” he said. Another official said that the transport department would levy fines on autorickshaw drivers who refused to go by the meter. The dashboard’s features include live tracking, vehicle trip analysis and money charged. The device works through an internet-enabled SIM card. Sources in the transport department said that, currently, around 8,500 of the nearly 1 lakh autos in Delhi have active internet cards through which they use GPS. “During fitness examination of vehicles, we will make it compulsory to check if the meters in the autos are linked with GPS,” the official said.Six months after the Delhi government revised auto-rickshaw fares, most drivers in the city either brazenly refuse to go by the meter or simply make excuses that it is not recalibrated or not working. While auto drivers would refuse to use the meter earlier too, the problem seems to have increased in the past two-three years. A senior transport department official said that till last year, their common grouse was that while CNG rates had increased, meter rates had not.
However, that changed in January this year, when the government hiked the minimum rate from INR 25 to INR 30. Beyond the initial 1.5km, the fare was increased from INR 9.5/km to INR 11/km. The situation on the ground, however, did not change much. Another official of the Delhi government said, “If we are able to make even majority of the auto drivers follow the meter rule, others will also follow.”
Rekha Ahuja, who regularly uses auto rickshaw to commute from Mayur Vihar to ITO, said, “The problem is that we do not even ask auto drivers if they would go by meter. They will simply say meter is not working.” Kishan Verma, president, All-Delhi Auto Taxi Transport Congress Union, said, “The drivers have a tendency to charge more but the authorities should open helplines for people to complain.”
