Seven seater autos days numbered

Discussions are afoot on banning the seven-seater autos in the twin cities from next month

If everything goes to plan, the 3,000-odd seven-seater autos in the twin cities would be banned from January 1, 2016. Though new registrations of the vehicles are not being done in Hyderabad by the Road Transport Authority, about 500 seven-seater autos have been registered in Parigi in Ranga Reddy district in the last two years.

CLN Gandhi, former additional transport commissioner, an authority on the M V Act said, “Technically, the RTA officials cannot stop the seven-seaters; it is up to the Traffic Police to take action. The lack of staff is the reason the transport as well as traffic police department officials cite for not conducting checks.”

The autos are mostly seen in Uppal, L B Nagar, Hayatnagar, Amberpet, ECIL, Rajendranagar, Mehdipatnam, Tolichowki, Kukatpally, Ameerpet, Kukatpally, Ramachandrapuram, Pahadi Shareef, Karmanghat and Kondapur.

While the seven-seater autos break rules, they are a boon to citizens. Anil Kumar, a resident of Alwal said, “There are few buses between ECIL and Alwal. It is these seven-seaters that come handy. Also they stop wherever we tell them to and it is affordable.”

The other areas where RTC has few buses are Mehdipatnam to Rajendranagar and LB Nagar to Bandlaguda. Ravi Kiran, a resident of BM Reddy said, “One has to wait for an hour for an RTC bus here. If the seven-seater autos are banned the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation needs to introduce more buses on this route.”

It is alleged that in many areas a considerable number of seven-seaters are owned by traffic inspectors by registering the autos in benami names. Raghu, a driver who plies an auto between ECIL and Alwal said, “There are close to 150 autos in the route and about 40 are owned by traffic inspectors.”

By:T P Venu & T Jayendra Chaithanya