When the cat's away, mice will play: Commuter suspect cabbies, autowallahs living up to the adage with few traffic officials on the road
With the deployment of several staffers from Regional Transport Offices for poll-related activities, citizens are raising suspicions that auto and taxi meters are being tampered with. State transport officials said that even on normal days, the RTOs in the city have a staff shortage of almost 30 per cent and the poll duty has almost doubled the shortage.
While transport officials as well as rickshaw and taxi union functionaries said that there was no data to show if the commuters' thinking so was indeed correct, a few commuters DNA spoke to believed they were right.
A media professional who took a taxi from the Income Tax office near Currey Road station to Elphinstone station ended up paying Rs 57 when similar trips earlier had cost the person just Rs 35. "Very often you realise that the taxi or rickshaw driver gives up the argument - in case of an inflated fare - if he spots a traffic cop around. It is a giveaway that the meter is tampered," said the media professional.
Mumbai Rickhsawmen's Union chief Thampi Kurian said that his union had not got any complaint so far. "But it is possible that some unscrupulous drivers might be tampering with their meters thinking that with RTO officials off on poll duty, the chances of getting caught is minimal," said Kurian.
Kurian however said that the real problem of meter-tampering is being seen at select pockets- like the international airport, outside railway termini like Kurla and Bandra and spots on the highway where inter-state luxury buses drop and pick up passengers.
"Some drivers are employing a device to increase the pulse of the meter in such a way that even without the passenger realising anything amiss, he ends up paying up at least Rs10 to Rs20 more on the fare. The shortage of staff in the RTOs is actually emboldening these drivers rather the ones who ply their rickshaws and taxis locally," said Kurian.
State transport commissioner VN More could not be contacted despite repeated calls.
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