Police and Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) jointly launched drive against the meterless and unregistered autorickshaws in the city from first February .
Till Monday, cases filed against 4121 autorickshaws under MV act for running in roads without meters and 121 autorickshaws seized yesterday upto 11 am for not obtaining registration from the concerned authority, sources said. Police still continuing drives against non-meter autorickshaws.
While contacted Additional Police Commissioner of CMP AKM Shahdiur Rahman told this correspondent that they are continuing the drives but the autorickshaw owners sought times for two or three days to install meters in their vehicles.
He also said those autorickshaws are plying with AFR sticker will be seized and no unregistered autorickshaws will be allowed in the city roads. Mentionable that CMP authority earlier directed the autorickshaw owners to install fare meters in their vehicles before first February as police prohibits plying of autorickshaws without meters from first February, sources said.
Meanwhile, the CMP authorities last year instructed the CNG-ran auto-rickshaw owners in Chittagong to install meter and charge the passengers fare based on meter counting. The CMP also fixed the fare chart and set a seven-point list of conditions for the auto-rickshaws.
The authorities further announced that no CNG auto-rickshaw would be allowed in the port city without meter from February onwards.
The CMP also warned that the route permit of the vehicles or license of the driver will be cancelled if they fail to follow the directives.
But in the end, many of the auto-rickshaws were found meter-end.
Earlier, the CMP extended the deadline in this regard on several occasions following the ever-complaining owners’ request.
The CMP had fixed the fare at Tk 40 in the city for the first two km while Tk 12 per km after the two km.
Sources concerned said around 20,000 CNG-run auto-rickshaws are now running in the city. The drivers of the taxies demand additional rent from the passengers for traveling.
The drivers demand about Tk 140-150 from the passengers to go to Agrabad from New Market area. Although, the distance between the two areas is not more than four km, sources said.
