Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SHP)

Bengaluru, Dec 5: Acting upon the numerous complaints, traffic police in Bengaluru earlier this week, went on a crackdown against auto rickshaw drivers who refused to ply on metered fares or those who denied rides in three out of the seven zones of the city. To nab the aberrant auto drivers in the act, police officials posed as commuters in prime junctions under specific zones and asked to be dropped at various locations in the city.

The official was successful in booking over 5,200 drivers across the city. The violations ranged from refusing to drive to a certain destination to demanding more fare coupled with having invalid or improper documents.

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The number of auto drivers refusing rides was 797 in the East zone, 697 in the West zone and 81 in the North zone. Similarly, those demanding extra fares were 682 in the East, 604 in the West and 60 in the North zone. Over 212 autos from the East zone and 280 from West zone were seized by the police for having no or improper documents. In these three zones, additional around 2,000 auto drivers were fined for minor offences like not wearing a uniform and other violations. All these violations resulted in the traffic police collecting Rs 8,06,200 in fines.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) BR Ravikant Gowda stated since the crackdown proved successful, the officials plan to conduct similar drives in other zones of the city.

Narayan Swamy, president of Adarsh Auto Driver Union in Bengaluru said, “These drives are important. Because of some auto drivers who overcharge, the rest get a bad name and people prefer Uber or Ola cabs instead of autos. This results in less business for us.”