End of the line for tampered auto rickshaw meters

Auto-rickshaws, known as autos, keep Mumbai's suburbs humming as they buzz around in their black and yellow bee-colored kit.

Yet every time there's an auto strike in Mumbai -- and there were two last week -- we curse them. Every time they refuse to ply the route we require, we curse them. Every time the meter appears to read wrong, we curse them -- because we are defenseless.

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According to the Hindustan Times, the Regional Transport Office has been conducting a drive against tampered meters for the past three weeks.

And here's the horrifying news: at least 70 percent of Mumbai's auto meters have been tampered with.

"It costs Rs 70 to Rs 150 to get a meter tampered with, after which the fare goes up by Rs 1.5 to Rs 2 per kilometer," the report said.

This is why autos were on strike last week.

After a meeting with auto unions on Sunday, state chief minister Prithiviraj Chavan decreed that all autos plying on city roads must have electronic meters.

If the transport commissioner's studies find that electronic meters cannot be easily tampered with, we should expect that in the next one year, all autos in the city will start running on electronic meters.

Are the dark days of paying more than you owe just about over? Say it is so!

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