Kolkata: Autos on most routes carry additional passengers, charge extra fares – Times of India

KOLKATA: When Sayanti Das tried to board an auto from Park Circus to Tagore Park, she was expecting a maximum of two to three passengers. Instead, she found five. The auto operator also decided to take a detour. When she protested, the operator told her that he was just reacting to the demands. Across several routes in the city, the same rule was followed on Saturday — some took extra passengers, others charged extra fares.
Most operators kept citing the two-passenger rule for the fare hike, disregarding the fact that fares were hiked last year for exactly this purpose. Others claimed the Rs 13 per/kg of gas has offset all profit-loss calculations made last year. Kalyan Chowdhury, an engineer from Behala, said the autos on Kidderpore-Behala route charged Rs 30 for a 1.5 km trip to Majerhat and then another Rs 30 from there to Behala Chowrasta.

However, some routes carried just two passengers in accordance to the 50% capacity norm. Among the routes where auto fares had normalised on Friday was Thakurpukur-Taratala and Behala-Tollygunge.
The situation was the worst at Ultadanga and the auto routes emerging from Salt Lake where drivers charged fares at their will — different fares at different times of the day —and all carrying four passengers. A ride from Salt Lake Karunmoyee to Ultadanga that used to cost Rs 16 in March, now costs anything between Rs 25 and Rs 35. A ride to Phoolbagan from Karunamoyee is now Rs 30 — double than what it was in April.
A number of complaints against errant auto operators in the past 24 hours, all of them on Twitter and Facebook accounts of Kolkata traffic police, have led Lalbazar to promise a probe in each of them.