ODD SURVIVOR Lone women-only orange autorickshaw saved
Grappling with the menace of scrapped autos, the roads of twin-city faces another major hurdle – this time in the form of blatant misuse of salmonorange (Aboli in Marathi) ladies special auto-rickshaws.
Months after permits were given to 20 women to ply the special colour-coded vehicles, except for one driven by Urmila Patil all other women-only autos have disappeared from the streets of the twin-city.
As per the initiative, women drivers would primarily cater women commuters, although there is no bar on male passengers using these autos.
It is learnt that most of the salmon-orange autos
for women drivers are being misused by males who have changed the mandated colour to the standard yellow and black.
“Being the sole bread winner of the family including my mother and daughter, I am really lucky of getting an opportunity to become economically independent. However, it would have been much better if other female permit holders would have joined me,” says Urmila who thanks her male counterparts for their co-operation and operators for giving her preference for refuelling at CNG pumps.
Taking a strong abjection to the anomalies, the Rickshaw Chalak-Malak Association has threatened to launch an agitation against the Regional Transport Office for turning a blind eye to the illegalities.
“We were to go-off roads this week, but due to the ongoing festive season, the plan was dropped. We will wait for 15 days for the authorities to initiate action, else we will have to launch a stir,” said the association.
“We regularly conduct drives to weed out illegally operating autos. Just yesterday we impounded 23 vehicles. If there is any illegality in the orange auto scheme, we will soon initiate action,” said an RTO inspector.
Some permit holders have instead turned the women oriented scheme into a lucrative business by renting out their vehicles to others.