Gujarat: Minimum auto fare hiked to Rs 15

Are you ready to shell out more on autos? The commuters across Gujarat will now have to spend 25% more as the state Transport department has raised the minimum fare and the operating fare for auto rickshaws. However, rickshaw operators say that the move is long overdue.

Accordingly, the minimum fare for first 1.2 km is raised from Rs12 to Rs15. The incremental fare for every 200 metres has also been raised from Rs1.6 to Rs2.0. For one-way journey outside the municipal and cantonment limits, fares can be charged at 1.5 times the rates prescribed. In case of a return journey for destinations outside the municipal and contiguous cantonment limits, no additional fares can be charged. However, there is no rise in waiting charges and luggage charges.

There are close to eight lakh rickshaw drivers in the state and they have been pressing for the revision of rates under the aegis of Gujarat Rajya Autorickshaw Drivers Action Committee. Even as they welcomed the move, they said the revision was long overdue. "We have been demanding a rate revision for past four years. Meanwhile, the cost of fuel, other operating cost and price of necessary items for a living have also increased," said Rajveer Upadhay, secretary of the committee.

He said the autorickshaw operators are mostly from lower and lower-middle classes and they have suffered financial loss as the rates were not revised as per schedule. "Who is responsible for this loss?" he asked. The action committee has demanded that rates be revised every year and made applicable as the financial year begins. The committee, however, is not happy as waiting charge and luggage charges have not been revised.

Rickshaw operators have been pushing for the rise in fares, but the government was not relenting. Of late, they were also contemplating agitations, if the fares were not hiked. Finally, the government gave a nod.

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Chief convener of the committee Ashok Punjabi said that the even educated youth are now becoming rickshaw operators as new jobs are not being created in the country and it is an important source of income for the masses.

• Rs 12  is  ithe minimum passengers had to pay so far for the first 1.2 km
   
• Rs 2.0 is the incremental fare for every 200 metres. It was initially Rs 1.6
   
• 1.5 times is new revised rates prescribed for one-way auto journeys outside  municipal and cantonment limits