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State draws up contingency plan to counter Rao's auto stir

The Maharashtra government has rolled up its sleeves to draw up a contingency plan to counter Sharad Rao’s threat of a state-wide indefinite auto strike from April 16.

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The Maharashtra government has rolled up its sleeves to draw up a contingency plan to counter Sharad Rao’s threat of a state-wide indefinite auto strike from April 16.

Drawing up a strategy, transport officials on Thursday held an urgent hi-level meeting of all the state public transport operators on what can be done to help the general public.

“We took stock of the situation and assessed what the public transport operators can do on the day. Among the various plans of the state is running additional buses on feeder routes, stopping buses at request and running more buses to fill in the absence of autorickshaws,’’ a senior official who attended the meeting said.

Apart from officials from nine civic bodies, top officials of most of the public transport undertakings, including MSRTC, BEST, Thane Municipal Transport, etc. attended the crucial meeting.

In Mumbai, the transport authorities have asked the BEST to run more buses in the suburbs and more feeder routes from and to the station to counter the absence of autos. This will be the template for other cities too.

“The suburbs have more population, and hence more crowd, as compared to the island city and a higher frequency of buses there will help to clear the rush faster,’’ an official added. State transport authorities have been asked to run more buses in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and they will be pressing about 70 to 100 more services into the region.”

The Sharad Rao-led union has declared a state-wide indefinite strike of rickshaw drivers from April 16, with the aim to pressurise the government over their demands, which include an interim hike of Rs5 in the minimum fares for Mumbai, taking the fare to Rs16 for the first 1.6km and Rs9 for every subsequent kilometre.

For other cities, the union has demanded a hike of Rs 4 per kilometre.

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