40,000 autos have tampered meters

HYDERABAD: The government appears to have developed cold feet on replacing mechanical auto fare meters with digital ones in the face of a protest by a section of auto drivers and auto meter repairers.
Even as the introduction of tamper-proof digital meters has been delayed, it has come to light that of the 50,000 mechanical meters fitted on autos after adjusting them to the new minimum charge of Rs 8 recently, 40,000 have been tampered.This has been done to make the meter tick faster to clock 40 paise more per rupee, according to sources.
The tampering was done with the help of meter repairers, sources said.
In addition to the 42 licensed mechanical meter repairers, about 50 more unlicensed ones operate in the city. They tamper meters as required by the auto driver upon payment of Rs 30 to Rs 50.
When contacted, weights and measures department deputy director B Ramkumar confirmed that there were about 42 mechanical meter repairers, but the department was unaware of the unlicensed operators. Recently, three such unlicensed repairers were detected by the department, he said.
Though the government had earlier stipulated that autos which fail to install digital meters by Jan. 16 would be seized, the decision has now been put off indefinitely.
The decision to implement the introduction of digital auto meters would be taken only after a discussion with the auto drivers union and auto meter repairers on Saturday, the transport commissioner A Giridhar said.
Priced at Rs 3,000 to Rs 3,700, the digital meters have already been fixed on 23 autos plying in Rangareddy district, a dealer of digital meters said. Seven companies manufacturing digital meters — Sansui Electronics, Pulsar, Super, Perfect, Standard, National and Genus — have already obtained licences from the government to sell their products in the state.
So far, four dealers have obtained licences from the weights and measures department for the sale of digital meters.