Rickshaw Panchayat, the leading union of autorickshaws in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, has firmly opposed the state government notification making electronic meters compulsory for autorickshaws and taxis.

A resolution to this effect was passed at the weekly meeting held on Saturday night under the leadership of Baba Adhav, president of the Panchayat.

In a statement released on Sunday, Adhav said the government did not find it necessary to consult taxi and autorickshaw drivers before issuing the notification. Many of the drivers did not get copies of the notification, and the time given for making objections and suggestions was inadequate. If the notification is implemented we plan to start an intense agitation.

Adhav stated that autorickshaw drivers were not in a position to afford electronic meters as they have taken loans to convert their autorickshaws to LPG as per the directives of the Bhure Lal committee appointed by the Supreme Court. He claimed that the scheme to fix electronic meters did not succeed in cities like Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai.

Adhav said if the tariff structure was based on metric system, the number of passenger complaints would be reduced significantly as experienced in Pune. Making electronic meters compulsory in a few cities will not serve any purpose as most rickshaws did not charge tariff as per meter in most of the places, he added.

The manner in which the existing mechanical meter system is sought to be changed made it look as if the rickshaw drivers were criminals, he said adding that the Panchayat suspected that some manufacturers or political leaders had some vested interests in making electronic meters compulsory.