Transport dept committee to meet with auto owners today

In a bid to rationalise routes of auto-rickshaws in the city and its adjoining areas before 

introducing a policy on plying of the vehicles, the newly formed auto-rickshaw route management committee of the state Transport department will hold a meeting with representatives of the vehicles owners on Friday.

At present there are 125 routes on which auto-rickshaws ply in the city.

The state Transport department has urged representatives of auto-rickshaw owners and drivers from all the routes to be present at the meeting.

It may be mentioned that on September 20, the state Transport Minister Suvendu Adhikari had announced the state government’s decision on introducing auto-rickshaw policy and it had come at a time when the number of unregistered auto-rickshaws are quite equal to that of registered ones.

The route management committee comprised senior officials of the state Transport department would discuss various issues related to the plying of auto-rickshaws with the representatives.

According to a senior official of the state transport department: “The meeting is essential as the route management committee has to decide on which routes the plying of auto-rickshaws is not needed. 

Moreover, members of the committee also have to decide the number of auto-rickshaws which should ply on a particular route. Since all sorts of steps to streamline the existing problems would be taken considering that no one’s livelihood gets affected, discussion with the representatives is essential”.

Sources said members of the route management committee will be creating a data after taking details from the representatives on passenger load on respective routes, fare between two points and number of auto-rickshaws plying on a route. 

The rationalisation of routes would be done following proper consultation with experts based on the data containing route-wise details of auto-rickshaws.

The necessity of introducing auto-rickshaw policy has been realised by the state Transport department following repeated incidents of road accidents in which auto-rickshaw passengers and drivers fell victims.

A draft of the policy on plying of auto-rickshaws was prepared following an order of the Calcutta High Court in 2010. But finally it was not introduced. The Transport department has once again taken steps to introduce the same and it will be done before Durga Puja.