After a meeting with Ranchi Deputy Commissioner (DC) Vinay Kumar Choubey, Jharkhand State Diesel Auto Drivers Federation called off their indefinite strike bringing much needed relief to the commuters on Monday.
From September 20, the federation was on an indefinite strike pressing for their demands of issuing permits to all Auto Drivers as soon as possible, providing batch number to all the Auto Drivers and decreasing number of police station from four to one.
Jharkhand State Diesel Auto Driver Federation President Dinesh Soni said, “We were fighting for our rights and none of our demands were illegitimate. We have called off our strike only because the administration has assured us to consider our demands.”
Seeing the problems faced by the daily commuters the administration decided to hold a meeting with the federation and find a solution. On Monday afternoon, the DC called the members of the federation for a meeting in his office. In the meeting DC promised to issue the remaining as many as 765 permits to the auto drivers soon. Moreover it was also decided that the administration will
not check the permit of
auto drivers for an hour both in the morning as well as evening.
The State government earlier had decided to issue as many as 3100 permits to the city auto drivers but due some reason only 2335 permits could be issued. “Now, we have decided to issue the remaining permits at earliest. Moreover, in the morning between 8am to9 am and 6pm to 7 pm in the evening traffic officials will not check their permit in order to allow the auto rickshaw who do not have permission to ply on city roads,” said Choubey.
DC also asked Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) officials to ensure that their department do not charge high price from the auto drivers in the name of auto stand.
“The administration has decided to conduct a meeting with the officials of RTO, DTO, Traffic SP and Federation members in the near future to discuss on the remaining demand,” said Soni.
Ranchi MP Subodh Kant Shahi also played an important role in resolving the issue as he mediated between the administration and the drivers association members.