BANGALORE: How many times have you had issues with auto drivers for not turning on the auto meter? Well, the government officials have no clue as to how to control this menace. Despite the traffic police department and several nongovernment organisations (NGOs) running a special helpline for complaints against auto drivers, the customers continue to be harassed in Bangalore.Though the onus is on the Legal Metrology Department, it seems to have its own problems in coming to the rescue of passengers.It is the responsibility of legal metrology officials to do a verification and stamping of all auto and taxi meters in the city.“We conduct regular inspections and book cases only after verification.It is highly impossible for us to keep track of every autorickshaw meter in the city,” said M Gopalappa, Assistant Controller, Department of Legal Metrology.The department officials have booked around 3000 cases in the last one year and have collected fine up to `500 from each.Nevertheless, no one was punished or put behind bars except being penalised.Gopalappa asserts that majority of the cases booked pertains to drivers not producing the auto meters for annual verification.“In spite of the annual verification charge being just `100, many do not get it renewed or checked.It is the auto-rickshaw owners with mechanical meter who violate the rules.Fearing that they would have to shift to digital meter which is mandatory, many do not come for annual verification at all,” Gopalappa added.Meanwhile, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Traffic Central) M G Subramanya agrees that there are auto-rickshaws with tampered meters running in the city, but he said unless the customer complains about it, they will not know about such cases.“Customers have to insist on meters and if the drivers deny, they can complain to us, upon which we will take action against them or forward the request to Legal Metrology department.However, we cannot separately monitor it,” Subramanya said.Blame GameAutorickshaw associations blame legal metrology and traffic police officials for not taking strict action and imposing rigorous rules to control the menace of meter tampering.M Manjunath, President of Auto Adarsha Auto and Taxi Drivers Union said just penalising will not be enough.Unless the violators are booked and sent to jail, the issue will continue to thrive, he observed.Strangely, officials at the Department of Legal Metrology claim that tampering has decreased to a large extent.“Tampering has decreased drastically over the past few years because we book a case and refer it to the RTO and take stringent action,” said Gopalappa.When asked whether they raid places where tampering is done, he said, “Tampering is not done by drivers themselves; it is done by a team of technical experts who are not easy to track,” he added.
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