UT to impound illegal autos

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 21

Taking a tough stand, the Chandigarh Administration has decided to impound autos from Punjab and Haryana running illegally in the city. Sources said the decision was taken at a high-level meeting of officers today.

Besides impounding the illegal autos, it was also decided to make it mandatory for autos to display the details of the driver as in the case of web-based taxis.

Instructions will be issued to the owners of autos to paste the details of the driver with his picture behind the seat so that passengers can send the details to someone known to them.

An officer of the Administration termed it a step towards making the journey of women passengers safe. He said if women passengers had the details of the driver,  they could send these to one of their relatives soon after hiring the auto. At present, the State Transport Authority, Chandigarh, is only issuing challans to autos running illegally in the city after the rape incident.

The authorities have a tough task at hand to check 2,600 to 3,000 autos running without registration in the city. Rajiv Tewari, Additional Secretary, STA, said the STA would also crack the whip on autos running on temporary numbers. He said the STA had stopped registration beyond the limit of 5,500 autos in the city. He said the STA had started a drive and 74 challans were issued to those without the permit today.