COIMBATORE: Almost 200 auto drivers from across unions gathered at Red Cross to protest against penalty charges at the regional transport office and corporatisation of the autorickshaw business. They claimed that both these factors are severely affecting their livelihood. The demanded that the increased charges be rolled back immediately.The protest taken out by the Coimbatore District All Autorickshaw Workers Joint Committee said they condemned the raising of penalty charges at RTOs."A delay in renewal of fitness certificates used to attract a penalty of just Rs 100 for two months, but now they have raised it to Rs 50 per day or Rs 1,550 a month," said the deputy general secretary of the CITU Auto Union, Muthukumar."The penalty for a licence not renewed has also been placed at Rs 1,550 a month. This has to be done once every three years for a driver with a badge and once every five years for a driver driving his own vehicle," said Muthukumar.The unions say though they know that charges have been increased as per the Motor Vehicle Act (Amendment) 2016 at the central government level, no other state has implemented it so far. "No other state has implemented the new amendment and notification yet, but Tamil Nadu has," said Muthukumar. "We demand that the old charges be brought back and the insurance renewal fee also be cancelled," he said.Auto drivers say the RTOs had already severely fined them for not following the charges fixed by the state government in 2015, and now these new charges are making driving an autorickshaw unviable. "First the fares fixed by the government are economically unviable in Coimbatore, but we paid heavy fines and loss of business because of it. Now they have increased the renewal charges and fines for non-renewal," said a protesting auto driver, K Sivaraman. "None of us not renew purposely, but often due to a personal hold-up or we sometimes do not realize," he said.The also demanded that corporatisation of the autorickshaw business be stopped. "They are forcing us to compete with each other and follow an extremely low and unviable fare structure because they don't depend on autorickshaws entirely. How are they allowed to charge a surcharge which is sometimes above the fixed fare rate?" asked another driver, Imitullah Hakim.

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