 |
| Long wait |
Bhubaneswar, Aug. 21: A year has passed since the state transport department constituted a committee to introduce a prepaid autorickshaw service in the city. However the service is yet to start functioning because the fare chart has not been prepared.
The committee comprises officials of the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar police, regional transport office (RTO) and railway officials.
While the traffic wing of commissionerate police was entrusted with the job of identifying zones for the service, the RTO was asked to fix the fare.
“We have submitted a proposal for fare structure. We have suggested Rs 30 for first two km and Rs 10 for every subsequent kilometre. We have proposed a Rs 8 per km rate after travelling eight kilometres,” said Lal Mohan Sethy, regional transport officer of Bhubaneswar.
A technical committee headed by the state transport commissioner was supposed to decide on the final fare structure. Though a similar point-to-point fare chart was introduced in 2008 for auto rickshaws keeping the railway station as starting point, it is not in practice anymore.
Sources in the transport department said the railway station, airport and Barmunda bus terminal would be considered starting points before a fee structure was formulated.
A similar service, which was launched in Cuttack by the police commissionerate in October 2011, is doing quite well.
“We will launch the service once the fare structure is finalised,” said a senior police official.
However, the city doesn’t have enough traffic personnel to man the booths. Sources said at least 12 cops would be required to manage the pre-paid booths.
Padman Kumar Samal, general secretary of Bhubaneswar Autorickshaw Mahasangha, alleged that the government was not doing enough to start the pre-paid service. “We have urged the authorities to introduce the service as early as possible, but they are yet to come up with a fare chart,” said Samal.
Without a pre-paid auto rickshaw service, passengers often complain of arbitrary fares being demanded by autorickshaw drivers, especially at night.
