Think auto-rickshaws in Bangalore. Now, add 7,000. Even if that doesn’t make a pleasant thought, better start living with it.
With the State Transport Department toying with the idea to issue 7,000 fresh auto permits in Bangalore, the question is back to the basic: Does Bangalore need more auto-rickshaws?
A team constituting City Police officials and Regional Transport Officers is expected to submit a report to the government on the scope and limitations of the move.
According to the Transport Department, 73,000 autorickshaws run in the City with permits and another 10,000, without them. Mounting pressure from certain lobbies is learnt to have fuelled the move.
This, when senior officials of the Department - on condition of anonymity - themselves say that the City’s roads can’t take more autos.
The issuance of permits has a cap of 75,000. New auto-rickshaws are getting registered, but are running on permits that have already been issued.
“It’s fine as long as old autos make way for new ones. However, fresh permits will lead to serious road space issues,” says a senior official. The RTOs are also not entirely clued in. A senior RTO official says that apart from the Transport Minister’s recent announcement, there hasn’t been any “interaction” on the matter.
Opposition
Even if the new proposal is cleared, the Department will have to bank on a government appeal against a court stay, that had ended the open permit system. But that’s for later.
The first opposition to fresh permits, if they are cleared, will be from a section of auto-rickshaw drivers themselves.
“The immediate need is to regularise auto-rickshaws running without permits.”
“Worse, many autos that have been registered as private vehicles are running as public vehicles,” says Jagannath Rao, vice president, Auto Rickshaw Drivers Union.
The ARDU sees the new proposal as a move to support brokers who had been left on the fringes following restriction on the issuance of permits.
Rao also calls for the creation of a committee to decide on the number of auto-rickshaws needed, after incorporating demands of the entire Greater Bangalore region.
However, there are auto-rickshaw driver groups who are pushing for the fresh permits as well.
Sources in auto unions say that there’s no consensus among the drivers on the issue because certain members within the unions double up as registration agents.
“They take money from the applicants and ask them to dodge the police for some time, before they manage to get the fresh permits. The new proposal will only regularise these illegally plying autos and support the agents,” alleges a union member.
CROSSFIRE IN CAMP
Why should road congestion be an issue only with auto-rickshaws? Around 25,000 two-wheelers get registered every month in Bangalore. Call centres register around 2,000 vehicles for commuting employees every month. About 2,000 autos get registered every year and they are run by drivers  who can’t find employment elsewhere.
M Manjunath, President,
Adarsha Auto and Taxi Drivers Union
We have been maintaining since 1996 that no fresh permits should be issued. The City’s roads don’t even have parking space for more autos. The proposal is an attempt to keep the broker groups alive. If the government okays fresh permits, we’ll oppose the decision tooth and nail.
Jagannath Rao, vice-president,
Autorickshaw Drivers Union