Row over EFM continues
Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, May 17: The Island Auto Association has cried foul over the ‘bulky’ size of most of new Electric Fare Meters (EFM), which are being fixed by the Department of Transport in Andaman andNicobar Islands. The Island Auto Association, which has nearly 3000 registered autos, allege that most of the new (over sized) Electric Fare Meters are as ‘Unsafe’ as the previous Mechanical Fare Meters were, for passengers.
“STA has banned the ‘bulky’ Mechanical Fare Meters, because they said that the design of those MFM was not safe for public service vehicles as it often injure passengers, in case of any accident. Another reason was that these mechanical meters are believed to be inaccurate. We agreed to fix new Electric Fare Meters but to our dismay now we can see that most of the new Electric Fare Meters are also bulky in size. If Administration claims old Mechanical Meters ‘unsafe’ for public then the new Electric Meters should also be considered as unsafe,” Mr. P Kumaresan, the President of Island Auto Association told Andaman Sheekha today.
The Island Association is now demanding to totally ban the bulky Electric Fare Meters and allow fixation of those electric meters, which are small in size.
“The most shocking point is that after all these controversies even today most of the Auto drivers are not charging fare as per the electric fare meters, which defeats the purpose of installing these electric meters. Why stress is only on installation of Electric Meter? Why there is no drive to ensure mandatory use of these Electric Meters,” Kumereshan added.
We have bagful of other problems too. The Transport Department has not fixed waiting charges for auto rikshaws. There is no area wise parking place for auto rikshaws, which will reduce competition among auto rikshaw drivers.
However, when Contacted the Mr. B Binoy, Mechanical Engineer, Transport Department & Secretary, of State Transport Authority, told Andaman Sheekha that the Transport department never supplies Electric Fare Meters to Auto Rikshaw Drivers. “Both small and big electric meters are available in the market and they are free to buy any model,” Mr. Binoy added.
Regarding waiting charges Mr. Bijoy added that if any demand is received from Auto Association the matter will be considered while regarding pockets of parking places he said that “the matter is under the jurisdiction of DC South Andaman.”
However, amidst this controversy the general public remains as worst sufferer. Even after fixation of electric meter the auto driver continue to charge extra from general public and prefer not to charge fare as per the electric meter. “The Traffic Department is busy in stripping dark film from cars but it never checks whether auto rikshaw drivers are using fare meter,” complain a Port Blairian.
