City where only corruption and misrule is prevalent

Southern discomfort as autos flout norms

A STAFF REPORTER 03.11.2011

An auto carrying more than four passengers in Palbazar, Jadavpur (Sanat Kumar Sinha), and (below) a Metro report on September 6 that highlighted the auto menace in the added areas Old habits die hard. The southern fringes may be under Calcutta police jurisdiction now, but autorickshaw drivers continue to break rules with abandon, thanks to lax policing. If commuters thought the change in police jurisdiction would tame the lawless autos, they couldn’t be further from the truth. Most auto drivers are still carrying five passengers and breaking up the route into smaller sections to maximise profit illegally. “They still carry five passengers and drive as recklessly as they used to before Calcutta police took over. The auto drivers also do not agree to travel the full route,” said a Kasba resident who depends on autos for his daily commute to office. “The drivers pick up the fifth passenger a little ahead of the stand and carry him through the stretch where policemen are not usually posted,” he added. The four-passenger limit in an auto had been set several years ago but the auto drivers on the fringes used to ignore it as there were few policemen around, said a commuter. He added that the changeover to Calcutta police jurisdiction from September 1 had raised hopes that the rules would finally be followed, as the city police have more manpower than their South 24-Parganas counterparts. Auto fares in Kasba, Jadavpur, Behala, Thakurpukur and adjoining areas had been hiked immediately after the policing changeover, the reason being that the autos could no longer carry five passengers because of the “stricter policing”. Passengers said they didn’t mind the extra fare as long as the rules were being followed. But that is hardly the case. “The autos on the Taratala-Thakurpukur 3A bus stand route or the Sakherbazar-Tollygunge Metro route have increased the fare by Rs 2. But they still carry extra passengers,” said Sakherbazar resident Debayan Basu. All the auto routes in the areas that were inducted under the Calcutta police saw a fare hike because of the same reason. The practice of breaking up the route into several small parts to earn a little extra is still rampant. “This, too, hasn’t changed. No auto on the Taratala-Thakurpukur route will go the entire route from Taratala in the evening. They invariably break up the journey into three parts,” said Basu. “The autos first go to the Behala tram depot. The same auto will then pick up passengers till Sakherbazar or Behala Chowrasta. From Chowrasta, they again pick Thakurpukur-bound passengers. But if you ask the driver to go to Thakurpukur from Taratala, he will refuse,” Basu added. Because of these break journeys, a passenger who travels from Taratala to Thakurpukur has to shell out at least Rs 2 more than the regular fare. The police are in a fix as they do not have any way to prosecute an auto for charging extra. “It is difficult for us to prosecute any auto driver for charging a premium, as it is the auto unions, not the government, that decide the fares,” said a senior traffic officer. “If we have to penalise an auto driver for charging more, there has to be a parameter against which we compare it with. We cannot consider the union’s fare as the parameter since it has no government approval. So, prosecuting a driver for charging extra fare is impossible.” What the police can do is fine a driver Rs 3,000 if he is caught carrying more than four passengers or if he refuses to go the length for which his auto has a permit, the officer said. “The auto’s permit can also be revoked if the driver refuses to carry a passenger on the route for which it has a permit.”