Autos in Kota to have plates for women’s safety
PASSENGERS CAN NOW CLICK PICTURES OF THE SAFETY PLATES ON THE VEHICLES AND SEND IT TO FAMILY MEMBERS ON THEIR CELLPHONES
KOTA: Taking initiative to make rides in Kota safer for women, an autorickshaw union is installing ‘safety plates’ carrying details of the vehicle and driver in every three-wheeler.
The motive is to make every passenger, particularly women and tourists, feel secure as they can click pictures of the safety plates and send it to their families on mobile phones.
Anees Raen, president of the Kota Auto Driver Union, the city’s biggest auto union driver association, said on Friday there are around 3,500 autorickshaws in their union out of the total 7,500 autorickshaws.
“Details of the autorickshaw and its driver like name, mobile number, vehicle no, telephone numbers of police control room, a unique code of the autorickshaw and auto driver has been printed on the safety plates which are established behind the seat of the auto driver,” he said.
“If any mishap, crime or emergency happens during autorickshaw ride, the passenger can make use of the details on safety plate,” he added.
“The safety plate will also carry ‘logo’ of the Regional Transport Office (RTO) and police department so that no one can prepare fake safety plates,” Raen said.
“Kota Auto Driver Union will prepare and distribute free of cost safety plates to all autorickshaws in the city,” he said. The cost of each of the safety plate would come around `120 and the total cost of all safety plates would be around `11.70 lakh, which the auto union will collect through charity.
Presently, the union has already launched 20 autorickshaws with safety plates, he said. The installation of safety plates on all 7,500 autos is underway and will be completed in a month, he said.
A woman passenger, Kumkum Jain said that the safety plates will enhance safety of the passengers as now autorickshaw driver also knows that his identity and other details are with the passenger.
District collector Ravi Kumar Surpur and SP Kota City SS Godara launched the safety plates on Thursday. The district administration has said that from October 20 it will be mandatory for all autorickshaws to install safety plates.