Cybercafes to double rates from October 1

At a time when the police have started a crackdown on cyber cafes,shutting down many of those which are running without licenses.

At a time when the police have started a crackdown on cyber cafes,shutting down many of those which are running without licenses,the cyber cafe owners have decided to double their hourly surfing charges. The owners say that the rates have been hiked due to slew of reasons including the increase in the rent and electricity bill. The rates will come into effect from

October 1. We have decided to increase the surfing charges. For each hour the cyber cafe owners will charge Rs 20 instead of Rs 10. We have also decided to increase the print out charges as well which have been increased from Re 1 per page to Rs 2. Also the scanning charges have been increased from Rs 10 per page to Rs 15 and the CD writing charges have been increased from Rs 10-15, said Manohar Palande,vice president of Pune-Pimpri Chinchwad Cyber Cafe Association. He said that the rates will come into effect from 1 October,even as some of the cyber cafe owners have already started charging

higher rates. ens

The increase in the user charges has become necessary in the wake of the fact that not only has the rent of the buildings increased,but even the electricity charges have gone up. There is also increase in the maintainace charges and also the broad band charges have shot up, said Yogesh More,a cyber cafe owner.

The Cyber Cafe Association has decided to increased the user charges at a time when the police has already started the crackdown on the cafes and have closed many of them. In the Pune cantonment area,police have already closed down nine of the cyber cafes forcing the other cyber cafe owners to charge extra. While the rates of every other thing have increased the user charges of the internet were not increased for a long time, said Palande.

Meanwhile,the members of the Cyber Cafe Association today agitated outside the office of Police Commissioner pressing for review in the conditions which the police have imposed for them to get the licences. The conditions for the licence include that the cafe owners should have their own parking space and should also provide the police the map of the building from which they are operating. But it becomes difficult for us to fulfil these conditions as most of the cyber cafes are operating from rented space. We met the police officials and told them that it will be difficult to fulfil these conditions and they have assured us that they will look into the matter, said Palande.

Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories

Tags:
police