Digital auto meter is also not foolproof: Action panel

Digital auto meter is also not foolproof: Action panel
Deccan Herald

DH News Service Bangalore:
A ride along M G Road — from Coffee House to Anil Kumble Circle — in an autorickshaw with a digital meter takes just two minutes. But it could cost you Rs 75! Blinking in disbelief, you stare back at the meter reading showing 12.5 km, while the distance you travelled is less than a kilometre.

You’ve been taken for a ride. Digital-metered autos are not tamper-proof. Your fare could well depend on the whim of the autorickshaw driver.

A demonstration by Mohammed Abbas, Chairman of the All Karnataka State Auto Drivers’ Welfare Joint Action Committee, broke all myths about the digital meter’s supremacy over the mechanical meter. And also that the digital meters need not necessarily be broken into, for tampering. It can also be tampered with.


Abbas pointed out an Integrated Circuit (IC) board in the auto that acted as a tampering machine. The IC board, placed inside the music system, is connected to the wire running from the digital meter, at a point under the autorickshaw.

The IC board used is a waste TV board, electrically circuited by a radio mechanic.

A small device is connected to the IC board, using which the driver can control the meter. According to Abbas, the device can be fitted anywhere the auto-driver likes and the cost of this entire contraption: only Rs 400.

“We want the digital meters scrapped, for the welfare of commuters who are now being taxed abnormally. We have apprised the police of the tampering methods used by auto-drivers. We feel scrapping digital fare meters will be in the best interest of the public,” Abbas added.

No Complaints

Joint Transport Commissioner (Enforcement), Transport Department, D Vijayvikram, said that “there has never been any complaint against digital meters. The digital meters were found to be tamper-proof.”

“Fresh permits to autorickshaws were issued on condition that they be fitted with digital meters, but it was never enforced.”

‘WE WILL SEE’

N Raju, controller, Legal Metrology Department, said that his department would look into the matter immediately. “There are about 75,000 autos plying on the City roads and only about 58,000 of them have been stamped. These are the autos that have been inspected by the Jurisdiction Inspector, where he will verify if the meter is tampered or not, and then provide the meter with a stamping seal,” he said, adding the department conducted these inspections once in a year.

He said the tampered meters may have been acquired from unlicensed dealers or grey markets.

If the meters are found to be tampered with, even after the stamping, then it is a violation under the Karnataka Standard of Weights and Measures Act of 1985, read with Karnataka Standard of Weights and Measures Rules of 1988.

The violator will be then penalised with a penalty ranging between Rs 500 and Rs 2,000, depending on the nature of violation, he added.