Commuters fleeced by tampered meters have some cause to rejoice. The Legal Metrology Organisation, commonly referred to as the weights and measures department, along with the state transport department, is laying the groundwork for a massive on-road meter-checking drive in the coming days.
Commuters fleeced by tampered meters have some cause to rejoice. The Legal Metrology Organisation, commonly referred to as the weights and measures department, along with the state transport department, is laying the groundwork for a massive on-road meter-checking drive in the coming days.
Speaking to dna, Sanjay Pandey, controller of weights and measures, confirmed the move. "The formalities are being tied up and we intend to do it on a large scale to give relief to commuters. The laws that we are armed with allow us to take criminal action against those whose meters will be found tampered. Under the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 the second offence carries a prison sentence as well," said Pandey.
With a strength of 55 inspectors in Mumbai, the department believes it can pull off an on-road meter blitzkrieg along with the staff of the three RTOs in the city at Tardeo, Andheri and Wadala. "Manpower is not a problem," added Pandey.
The fight against meter tampering so far hasn't been very satisfactory, agreed transport officials, because of the lack of manpower and the wide array of tasks that the RTOs are mandated to do. It is such a slow process that the only meter tampering case currently being heard at the State Transport Authority Tribunal was lodged way back on August 8, 2012 at Jogeshwari police station.
Incidentally, to bring about uniformity in the meters of various manufacturers, the department has written to the meter manufacturers to make the meters in such a way that the pulse that converts the distance into fare is a constant 1,000 pulse to the kilometer.
Currently, officials said, meters in the city are different for two-stroke and four-stroke rickshaws and different for taxis. "Meters have 1,360, 1,200, 960 pulses etc and it makes testing and verifying of these meters difficult," said an official.
Officials of the department are basing their 1,000 pulse per kilometer diktat on Section 4 of the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 which states that 'every unit of measure shall be in accordance with the metric system based on the international system of units'.
For commuter Manish Chaturvedi, the aggression with which the metrology department has hit the road running as far as rickshaw and taxi meters are concerned is welcome. "I'm willing to pay by meter but I'm not willing to pay a paisa more than the fare shown by a tested meter. So if the legal metrology department comes down with full force on tampered meters, I'm all for it," said Chaturvedi.
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