Drive against "erring" autos

Today, there was an article in the Bangalore TOI that 110 auto drivers were booked for refusing to go on hire and demanding excess fare.

Auto drivers refusing to go on hire is bad, but does that make it unlawful? An auto rickshaw is a private service, not public transport. Thus it should be treated differently from the case of a public bus. A state-employed bus driver can be booked for dereliction of duty, but an auto driver is essentially a private operator who earns income on his own after paying the state a license fee for being allowed to operate. As such, treating that license as an obligation to serve the state doesn't wash. If there exist state laws for refusing to go on hire, I wonder whether they are even constitutional. This is akin to having a shop, which also provides a form of public service. Just because I have to get the necessary permits to own a shop doesn't mean the government can force me to keep it open. If I keep it closed, I lose business. Its simple market-driven economics.

Regarding "demanding excess fare", I myself prefer an upfront agreed amount over the meter, since I never know to what extent the meter has been tampered with. If an auto driver demands something I feel is too high, I always have the right to refuse him, and wait for another auto.

In both cases, there is no cheating involved. The only place where cheating is involved is where the meter is tampered with, since the passenger has no idea about it till traveling a considerable distance in an auto. And tampered meters are the rule rather than the exception in Bangalore, with mechanical meters. The new electronic ones are supposedly tamper-resistant. In my experience, electronic meters invariably show lower fares compared to the old mechanical ones.

For the same reason, "on the spot" bookings rule out tampered meters, which in my opinion, is the only instance of true cheating.

If the police want to curb cheating, they should make it compulsory for all autos to have electronic meters.

But this being India, we always try to tackle non-problems and leave out the real ones.