HC seeks report on fleecing autos

Rahul Chhabra / TNN / Jan 8, 2007, 03:41 IST

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The Delhi government's transport and weights and measures departments do not seem to find enough time to work together.

NEW DELHI: When it comes to taking action against fleecing auto drivers and ending commuters' woes, the Delhi government's transport and weights and measures departments do not seem to find enough time to work together.
Last year, teams of the two departments came together on just four occasions. And even if the four-week long drives were too few and far in between, these have bared the truth that almost half of autos out of the 75,000 in the city are running with defective meters.
On inspecting 1,985 autos, defective fare meters were dismounted and prosecutions made against 906 last year.
Replying to a notice issued by the Delhi high court in response to a public interest litigation complaining of over-charging and misbehaviour by auto drivers, the Delhi government has told the court that in one year the two departments, on an average, manage to inspect 2,700 autorickshaws on roads.

"Explain what action has been taken against fleecing autos?" the high court asked the government, while taking up the PIL filed by Hargh Aggarwal and Nitin Jain.
The petitioners said in their plea that drives conducted by the enforcement wing of the transport department and the weights and measures department amounted to an eyewash as these seemed to have no deterrent effect on auto drivers, indulging fleecing.
"According to the government's reply to an application filed under the RTI, the transport department has failed to serve challans or notices to 60 per cent of auto drivers—due to wrong addresses in official records—against whom complaints were received on its helpline number 42 400 400 between February and July last year," said Aggarwal.

The petitioners alleged that since issuing of challan or notice through post was not having the desired effect - though notices are issued in almost 95 per cent of the complaints received on the helpline - joint drives by the transport and weights and measures department were the only effective way of creating terror among unscrupulous auto drivers.
In its reply before the court, the enforcement wing of the transport department tried to justify the low number of joint drives by citing a staff shortage.
Deputy commissioner S S Gill, in an affidavit, told the court that the sanctioned post in the department were 246 and it was last revised in 1990 when the total number of vehicles was 16.37 lakh.
"As on date, the number of vehicles exceeds 48 lakh. From amongst the current staff, a considerable number is also deployed on duty at the impounding pit, control room challan branch, gate duty and office work," he said in the reply.

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