Will police ensure commuters pay?

SURAT, May 5: Agitating autorickshaw drivers of the city on Tuesday offered to install meters on their vehicles and ferry passengers stri...

SURAT, May 5: Agitating autorickshaw drivers of the city on Tuesday offered to install meters on their vehicles and ferry passengers strictly by the meter provided the police ensured that passengers paid their fares accordingly. Although the rickshaw unions didn8217;t appear too enthusiastic over the move, they said that they would go along with it for a month 8220;if the police honestly believe that it will work.8221;

Meanwhile, a group of 30 autorickshaw drivers led by Jashu Barot, president of the Shakti Auto Rickshaw Sangh and Abdul Patel, vice-president of the Sahayog Auto Rickshaw Union, sat on a dharna at the statue of Mahatma Gandhi. The dharna was organised in protest against a police drive launched recently in which rickshaw drivers are fined Rs 50 each time they8217;re caught ferrying passengers by the shuttle system that has been prevailing in the city for decades now.

Barot, while offering to run rickshaws by the meter, said members of his union were willing to follow the system for a month. 8220;We will not take anyone without the meter for a full month. But if people do not sit, are the police ready to make people pay? If people still do not accept the meter system, will the police feed us? If the police are ready to take up this responsibility, we are ready. If they cannot make people pay by the meter, then let them leave us and the prevailing system alone,8221; he said.

While office-bearers of the Shakti and Sahayog Auto Rickshaw Sanghs sat on a dharna outside Gandhibaug on Tuesday, Varachha Auto Rickshaw president Jayanti Prajapati and vice-president Kanu Ahir will sit on a dharna at Hirabaug Circle on Varachha Road with another 50 autorickshaw drivers on Wednesday, union leaders announced here on Tuesday afternoon.

While they have not spelt out their future agitational programmes, strike convenor Mahesh Master told Express Newsline it would be a surprise move. When asked if they were planning to take their vehicles off the road again for the second time, Master said that it could be possible if the police did not stop issuing memos.

Even as the dharna was on, the traffic police continued their drive against erring autorickshaws with more than 100 cases registered at various locations in the city. City police officials have made it clear that plying by the meter was compulsory and that this rule would be implemented. Police Commissioner Kuldip Sharma had stated earlier that the agreement reached between unions and the police specified that rickshaws would ply by the meter only.