Prepaid booth at Ganeshpeth bus stop set to be revived

NAGPUR: The Regional Transport Authority (RTA) is all set to revive the prepaid autorickshaw and taxi system at MSRTC bus stop in Ganeshpeth. On Tuesday, a joint committee of Nagpur Traffic Police, Regional Transport Office, Nagpur Municipal Corporation and MSRTC inspected the bus stop to check viability of restarting the prepaid service from the main bus terminus.
Presently, with no regulations outside the main bus terminus, autorickshaw drivers quite often indulge in altercation with Starbus officials, which leads to commotion.Recently, a group of autorickshaw drivers physically abused a Starbus conductor and driver for halting the bus at a certain point. To curb frequent altercation, DCP (traffic) Smartana Patil, deputy RTO Ravindra Bhuyar and NMC’s executive engineer (traffic) Mahesh Gupta inspected the place and discussed the issue with autorickshaw drivers.
After inspecting the spot, deputy RTO Bhuyar told TOI that the committee will now study the reason for shutdown of the earlier booth. It will also chalk out steps to ensure the smooth functioning of prepaid booth. The place there can streamline haphazardly parked autorickshaws as it can accommodate 40 three-wheelers at a time, he said.
At present, only one prepaid booth is functioning at Nagpur railway station. This time, however, the RTO is planning to provide option of booking private taxis as well.
The city’s past experiments with the prepaid rickshaw system has not been good. Though it was started at Ajni railway station and ST depot in Ganeshpeth a decade ago, the RTO, the traffic police and the autorickshaw unions failed to implement the system effectively which resulted in the system coming to a standstill.
Passengers often complain that getting an autorickshaw outside the bus stop to ply by meter is a difficult task. RTO officials feel that once the prepaid system is in place, passengers will not have to face rude behaviour of auto drivers and their demands for exorbitant charges.
As per sources, earlier this year the RTA, under the chairmanship of district collector Sachin Kurvey, too had tried to resume prepaid booths at four more places — Ganeshpeth bus stop, Ajni railway station, Nagpur Airport, east gate of the railway station and invited national-level bid. “But the RTA received only one bid and with many flaws. So, the procedure got scrapped,” said an official from RTO.