Hyderabad, February 05: College students would now be roped in by city police to undertake decoy operations to catch errant auto drivers.
As most autowallahs are allegedly cheating passengers by collecting extra fares either by not recalibrating meters or declining to use them, city police has decided to restart the special drive against autowallahs from February 11.
Though its been one-and-halfmonth since auto fares were revised by the Transport department, just 1,773 meters have been revised out of 70,000 autos in the twin cities.
During a joint press conference, traffic, transport and Legal Metrology officials said though the recalibration process began nearly a month ago, owners have deliberately decided against recalibrating meters to exploit passengers.
Additional commissioner of police (Traffic) CV Anand said that all autos should display the laminated chart, having the revised metre fares.
Autos rivers must affix the revised auto fare cards in the next five days. From February 11, we will take up a special drive to crack down on autowallahs who have not affixed the charts,” Anand said.
The chart will display both the earlier fares and revised fares, so that passengers can verify while paying the correct fare, he added.
He said that since auto drivers were getting alerted when police personnel were acting as decoys, henceforth students will be used to nab erring auto drivers.
——Agencies