IT City endorses digital auto meters

IT City endorses digital auto meters

Deccan Herald

Digital auto meters have been adopted in nearly 10,000 autos



Presenting Bangalore’s latest obsessive compulsive disorder: digital auto meters. A little over a year after it made its entry in April 2004, the IT City seems to have completely endorsed the Transport Department’s technological offing, so much so that some commuters confess they have waited, sometimes even stubbornly, for an autorickshaw with “a beeping ticking digital meter”.

The reasons for its top ranking is obvious. With its inbuilt faring system which enables the fare rate to change automatically during late night hours, the haggling over “single, one-and-half and double” dies a natural death. The meter box is tamper-proof, it can turn dysfunctional if the box is opened. Thanks to its accuracy, the ‘digital’ divide between the old and the new-age meters is now getting steadily wide.

Rakshita, a student of Mount Carmel College who stays at RT Nagar puts it lie this: “I am turning obsessive about digital meters. In the manual autometers, most of the time I am overcharged.”


Manjunath, a first year student of MES College, Malles-waram, admits that “with it being more scientific, it is reliable”.

Interior designer Deepanita opts for the digital metered autorickshaws as far as possible, but sometimes gets fooled into hopping into autos where the manual meters have been painted grey and made to look like a digital one. “With so much tampering going on, the difference between the manual and digital reading is substantial,” Deepanita comments.

However, these words of praise has not really got business rolling, point out autorickshaw drivers. “Customers do prefer the digital meters, though sometimes they get confused between distance and price readings. But I don’t think it affects profits in any way,” says Radhakrishna, who has installed a digital meter.

As for Girish who continues using his old manual meter, “as the new meters are very expensive” (Digital meters cost Rs 5,000), he does not find passengers partial to digital meters. “I have not been rejected even once for having an old meter,” he says.

Out of the 68,000-odd autorickshaws plying in Bangalore, nearly 10,000 are fitted with digital meters, reveal RTO sources. All new autorickshaws given permits after April, 2004, and some of those which received renewed fitness certificates have been fitted with digital meters. However, fitness certificates can be issued even for manual meters as digital meters have not yet been made mandatory under the Karnataka Motor Vehicles Rules.

“However a circular has been issued by the Transport Commissioner to make it compulsory,” sources added.