21 October 2004	Thursday	06 Ramazan 1425

KARACHI, Oct 20: Drivers of rickshaws and taxis continue to fleece commuters on one pretext or the other, openly flouting the officially fixed fares, and yet manage to go unpunished.

Most rickshaw and taxis - both yellow and black-yellow cabs - have either got their meters rigged to such an extent that they charge an almost double fare against officially fixed fares, or demand fares at their whim.

For stance, the official fare for a rickshaw was Rs6 per kilometre but their meters charged between Rs8 and Rs9 per kilometre. While black and yellow cabs had got their meters fixed at between Rs9 and Rs10 per kilometre as against the official fare of Rs7. Similarly, yellow cabs including Mehran, Alto and Hyundai, officially supposed to charge Rs8 per kilometre, were charging Rs10.

Even if a person wished to travel for only a kilometre or so, rickshaw and taxi drivers would ask him something between Rs15 and Rs20.

Complaining about the high-handedness of taxi drivers, a commuter, who is an employee of the city government and resides at main Tariq Road, said though the distance between his residence and office at the Civic Centre, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, was hardly six kilometres, meters of yellow cabs and black-yellow taxis showed an exorbitant fare ranging between Rs60 and Rs70.

Another person who resides near Hassan Square, and hiring a taxi on almost every weekend to visit his parents at Karimabad, said he was charged between Rs70 and 80 for a distance of hardly six kilometres.

"Whenever we request a traffic cop to take action against drivers of taxis/rickshaws for charging high fares, he expresses his helplessness on the plea that he enjoys no power to challan drivers who are in possession of fitness certificates, issued to them by motor vehicle inspectors concerned," an elderly person told Dawn.

Complaints about charging exorbitantly high fares by drivers of both rickshaws and taxis continue to pour into newspaper offices, but traffic police officials responsible for issuing fitness certificates to these vehicles, seem least bothered to take any action against rickety meters, as they reportedly charge hefty amounts from the drivers of such rickshaws and taxis for getting their meters passed at the time of issuing vehicle fitness certificates to them.

The trade of making rickshaw and taxi meters fast was flourishing at a number of places particularly Magazine Lane, Patel Para and Nishtar Road (formerly Lawrence Road), but government agencies seemed least interested in curbing such an illegal trade.