Sir,

This is to let you know about the bad experience I had while travelling in an autorickshaw in the city recently.

I boarded an autorickshaw near KSRTC Sub-urban bus stand and headed to a service apartment in JP Nagar. I had asked the auto driver to turn on the meter, rather than paying the demand fare. The total distance between the boarding and alighting point was around 7 kms. But, to my astonishment, it showed 11.5 kms, and the fare came up at Rs. 185.

I have been travelling so many times on the same route on two-wheeler, four-wheeler and also many times by autorickshaw. Certain auto drivers take this opportunity to fleece innocent people and bring a bad name to the entire fraternity, as some of  them genuinely earn their daily bread without resorting to unfair means.

I did take the snap of the license display board of the auto driver and he got scared, as he did not realise I was a localite.  We ran into an argument, as I could not bear what I was seeing. The auto driver immediately escaped from the scene.

We need to ensure a fare board is put up and all the meters are checked thoroughly, so that such unethical practices are put to rest. There are a lot of people who hire autos to meet their needs, but a few incidents like this, will definitely have our eyebrows raised and think twice before calling for an auto.

– Sai Niranjan, Mysuru, 24.2.2023

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