Buses play truant, share-auto drivers fleece passengers

Syed still remembers the harrowing experience of travelling in a shared autorickshaw one night when he didn’t take his motorbike to work.

A resident of Sevanagar near Kammanahalli, Syed works at a shopping mall near Madras Road and takes the road near the Baiyappanahalli railway station daily to reach his workplace.

On that particular night, he took a shared autorickshaw.

Bad drivers

“I could tell the driver was in an inebriated state, but I still took a chance. Instead of taking the shorter route towards the destination, he drove along the rail tracks and by some bad luck, the auto broke down. The driver then told us to get down and collected fares despite leaving us midway,” said Syed.

“When one of the passengers objected to paying the fare, the driver nearly hit him” added Syed.

Syed and his fellow passengers were stranded in the middle of a road. With no other public transport available, they had to walk all the way back to a point where they could find some vehicles.

No buses after 8 pm

On a stretch where buses almost stop plying by 8 pm, incidents such as this are not rare. There are many like Syed who either cross the tracks going towards the Banaswadi overbridge or take the road along the railway tracks towards areas such as Jeevanahalli.

However, the number of commuters is completely disproportionate to the number of buses that ply the road. With the Metro station close by, there should ideally be Metro feeders on this particular road to substitute the infrequent number of buses. However, no such arrangement has been made.

“I have come across auto drivers who charge extra after agreeing on a particular fare earlier,” said Ramesh.

Ramesh shared an autorickshaw with others only to be charged a higher fare.

High fare

“The normal fare charged from each passenger is Rs 10 till a common point. However, the auto driver charged us Rs 20 and threatened to leave us halfway if we didn’t pay up,” said Ramesh.