The district administration has begun taking measures to check exorbitant fare being charged by auto rickshaw drivers in the city.
To check the trend in the face of heaps of complaints, the RTO office of Sambalpur launched an awareness drive and put up banners at prominent places of the city displaying the rate chart for auto fare. “The passengers are to be charged Rs 6 for the first kilometer and Rs 3.10 for every subsequent kilometer. Similarly, during 10 pm to 6 am, the auto fare should be three times of the normal fare. These rates have been fixed by the Government. And the auto rickshaw should not charge more than that,” said Sambalpur RTO Maheswar Naik.
“We have put up banners displaying this information at 10 prominent places of the city for the awareness of the public,” Naik said. Five phone numbers of the senior staff of the regional transport office are given in the banners. A passenger can lodge a complaint about excess charging of fare by the auto rickshaw by calling to those numbers. He can also lodge a written complaint about overcharging, Naik said further.
Since there are no city bus services in Sambalpur town, the common people are mostly dependent on over 3, 000 auto rickshaws here. However, the residents here have been complaining about overcharging by the auto rickshaws as the minimum fare is Rs 10 here, the highest one in the country. However, the initiative of the administration to regulate the auto fare in the city has brought respite for the
residents. “Because of the absence of city bus service, the commuters are very often fleeced by the auto rickshaws here. However, the initiative of the administration will stop exploitation to poor people who don’t have other mode of communication,” said Surya Panigrahi, a local resident. Even, the late action by administration is also appreciable, he added.