City residents tired of haggling with autorickshaw drivers over fares can get some relief soon. With private transportation network companies turning on the heat with online services offering cheaper rides, a section of autorickshaw drivers have decided to go by fare meters and a fixed fare chart from next week.
Autorickshaw drivers affiliated to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) would operate to meters from August 14-15, the trade union has said. The move comes in the wake of rising public patronage to autorickshaws running under the Ola network, which offers not only convenience but also cheaper rides at fixed fares.
Autorickshaw fares have long been unregulated.
A majority of over 4,000 autorickshaws in Tiruchi do not operate to meters. Consequently, commuters complain that they have to pay through their nose even for short rides.
Although the district authorities made an attempt to enforce the meter system after the fares were revised by the government in 2014, a majority of autorickshaws failed to comply claiming the fares to be too low for a small city such as Tiruchi.
The union even took the issue to the court. The State government had then extended the revised meter fares fixed for Chennai to the rest of Tamil Nadu. As per the government order, the minimum fare (for the first 1.8 km) was fixed at ₹25 and₹12 for every additional kilometre.
Unions such as CITU had been demanding that the fare be hiked to ₹30 (minimum) and ₹15 for every additional kilometre.
However, the advent of Ola and the impending entry of another private cab aggregator forced those who had not joined the network to have a rethink.
Come August 14, CITU-affiliated autorickshaw drivers operating out of Central Bus Stand would begin to use meters and charge fixed fares.
CITU autorickshaw drivers in Srirangam and Chathram Bus Stand would follow suit the next day, the trade union representatives said.
The CITU-affiliated autos would charge ₹30 as minimum and ₹15 for every additional kilometre. “We have decided to go by meters as our member autorickshaw drivers have been complaining that they are not getting enough business due to the entry of private network operator. They are finding it difficult to earn even ₹300 a day. People think that we are charging high and by adhering to meters we hope to attract customers,” said S. Rengarajan, district president, CITU.
Fare charts would be displayed in the autorickshaws adhering to the system, he said.
Bakrudeen Babu, district president of the CITU-affiliated autorickshaw drivers’ union, said about 1,000 auto rickshaw drivers had joined the Ola network and were earning up to ₹1,000 a day. Others were facing problems in getting adequate customers. Those in the network were not even required to wait in the stands and some even operated out of their homes. “We have to protect the interests of our members and hence we have decided to go by fixed fares,” he said.
