BEWARE OF AUTOWALAS

“Auto Rickshaws” are the widely used means for transportation in most of the major cities and towns in India. The word “Rickshaw” is derived initially from the two wheeled pulling carts which are manually pulled by the operator in the early 19^th century. These rickshaws then turned into 3 wheelers which were operated as tricycles. Auto rickshaws can be found in many of the Asian developing countries and are quickly replacing the traditional manually operated rickshaws. The word “Auto” in “Auto Rickshaw” can be thought to be derived from the automation of the three wheeled cart which is run on a motor instead of manually pulling or cycling the cart. They are popularly called “Autos” in India. Auto Rickshaws are small three-wheeled motor run carts operated by a single individual with a passenger capacity cabin of three who are required to sit behind the operator or driver. There are enhanced versions of Auto Rickshaws which have increased capacity with more wheels (4-6 wheels) which support more passengers to travel on them.

The auto drivers are sometimes called as “Auto-walas”

Some of the Advantages of using Auto Rickshaws are discussed below.

1. Autos are one of the cheapest means of transport in towns and cities since these vehicles give a very good mileage on use.
2. Autos are designed with very well in dimensions to suit Indian roads. They are small and yet good to support a comfortable journey for three passengers apart from the driver.  Autos also have space for some baggage to be placed behind where the passengers sit.
3. Autos are best fit vehicles to use for both transportation of passengers or goods in very ancient areas of the many cities in India. Many of the Indian cities which are very old ranging from 100 to 2000 years would obviously not support broad road infrastructure like the newer areas that are being developed in the cities these days.

There are basically two ways to hire an auto for transportation. The first way is to hire the auto completely from intended source to destination of travel at a fixed price or on metered price. Metered prices could vary from city to city based on the cost of living of the city.

The second way is to hire autos that run on shared basis where in the source to destination is a fixed price and the auto driver can invite passengers into the auto till it reaches its capacity limits. Shared auto concept is cost effective for passengers who don’t have to hire an entire auto for transportation.

Like in most of the cases, there is a darker side to the usage of Auto Rickshaws. It is not very unusual to find tampered meters on Auto Rickshaws. The meter rates are fixed in most of the cities and governments have been working on trying to reduce the ability of autowalas to tamper the meters to cheat common man. Non electronic meters are easier to tamper with when compared with electronic meters. Unfortunately both the versions can be tampered. The meter readings in most of the autos have the following parameters. “Distance” that has been traveled in Kilometers and the corresponding “Charges” in Rupees for the distance traveled. These two parameters can be tampered to show wrong data.

The autowalas who operate on these good looking three wheelers are the cause of concern. They are not afraid to cheat the public by using tampered meters and opting for wrong directions to earn a larger sum of money when passengers are using metered service.

By my experience I found autowalas in Hyderabad to be very notorious. I want to share one instance which happened a couple of weeks back and is fresh in my mind. I am a resident of Hyderabad for over five years and I am well aware of the appropriate distances between places.  I happened to go to my home town with my family (my husband and kid), to spend some time with my parents. After returning back, we reached railway station around 5:30 AM. Knowing very well about autowalas we preferred to take the auto from the auto stand which is supervised by a traffic police. Before boarding into the auto itself I made it a point to ask the police if the meter rate was normal since between 10PM and 5AM autowalas charge 50% extra on the meter. What was ridiculous was the autowala told me it is 1.5 times the meter rate in front of the police and after I spoke rules he agreed to come at a normal meter rate and asked for Rs 20 extra over the meter to which I agreed. Since I stay over 15 KMs from the station I seemed to be a good customer early in the morning for the autowala (more the distance, more the money).

The approximate distance from railway station to our house is 17Kms from the 10^th platform of Secunderabad Railway Station where we boarded the auto. This auto had a electronic meter and for residents in Hyderabad it should be known that the meter charge averages to close to Rs 7 per kilometer.

Right from the time we boarded the auto, the meter distance was showing up in excess. The meter on this particular auto was showing approximately double the traveled distance right from the beginning. On observing this, we immediately informed the autowala saying there is something wrong. The autowala was trying to defend the meter saying it was right but once he noticed that we are not new to the city, he realized that he was caught. I just mentioned to him to stop by, at any police station if he disagreed with me and he kept numb for rest of the travel. I just mentioned to him that I would pay him for 17kms and also the extra Rs 20 that we decided before boarding the auto. He dint respond to what I told him and kept quite. We reached our destination and as expected the distance showed by as 32 kilometers which was exactly double the original distance. He  became very violent in the manner he spoke when I gave him Rs 140 (Rs 7* 17 +Rs20 = 139). He agreed that the meter was tampered but started to talk about all the apartments in my area saying all people living the area too have cheated someone else to buy an apartment. I dint want to proceed on the conversation and just asked him to come to near by police station if he wanted to further talk with me.

So friends, I thought I should make you aware of how to deal with autowalas in cities. You have to “Beware of Autowalas” whether or not you are new to the city. The following are few suggestions to avoid being a victim of using auto rickshaws.

1. It is very important for commuters to know either the distance of travel to ensure they are not cheated on meter rates. One can verify the distance in kilometers to check if it matches the given distance. It is even better to know the rate charged per kilometer on auto rickshaws in the given city. These rates would vary from city to city. If you are aware of the approximate distance in kilometer and meter charged per kilometer, you have arrived at the meter rate of the auto by multiplying the two.
2. Don’t be afraid to ask all the details of charges before boarding onto an auto even if you are boarding an auto at the police booth in railway stations or bus stands.
3. Be assertive during travel to ensure the autowala is taking you through the right directions you know (if you are not new to the city). If you are new to the city, ensure you have done some research on the city you are visiting and don’t expose your newness to the autowala when in conversation with him.

I may be getting too harsh on the entire autowala community but that happens in a society like ours when most of them belong to the wrong category. I would like to end by conveying my best regards to all those autowalas who do not tamper meters and cheat their customers. Let us all ensure we don’t cheat anyone and we don’t get cheated by anyone to see a brighter India in the future.