Waah Re, RTO!

The recent incident in Mumbai in which auto rickshaw drivers appeared to have gone on a strike is an interesting one indeed! There was utter confusion in the streets of the maximum city when all of a sudden autos did the vanishing trick en-masse, causing hardships to unsuspecting urban commuters. It was only later that we learnt from newspapers that it wasn’t a strike after all! It was a mass conversion of sort! No, no – not the mass conversion of faith or religion – more dramatically, it was the conversion of dishonest folks turning a new leaf in life and had embraced the honorable path of HONESTY! Could it be the work of the Art of Living or any of its variant avatars - or of some Baba preaching the common man on the street to lead a clean livelihood so as to attain moksha? Not really – it was the threat of punitive action under the law! The traffic police of the Regional Transport Office (RTO) - kudos to them - and yes, god bless their souls, had organized a “crackdown” on errant rickshaw drivers who had tampered their meters to overcharge the common man and fleece him of his hard-earned money in a wrongful manner.

Fearing punitive action, the rickshaw drivers rushed to “untamper” their “tampered” meters – and a heap of meters piled up at such Tamper/Untamper centres that had come up in the metropolis under the very nose of the RTO. Of course, under the garb of "repair centres”,! Folks - how was anyone to guess what went on there? Although the commuter had to brace another difficult time, what came out of all this imbroglio was some good news – that the fares for most long-distance commutes fell by 20% - 25%! Several Mumbaikars, who had been “taken for a ride” all these days, were instantly pleased with the authorities for once! Celebratory messages appeared on Facebook pages of “Meter Jam”, a group of people who have pledged to teach these rickshaw-walas a lesson. Meter jammers have been campaigning about the high-handed attitude of rickshaw-walas, who refuse to ply, demand extra money or cheat with tampered meters.

Meter Jammers keep urging us folks to help others by car-pooling, offering lifts whenever these guys throw a tantrum. Tweeple (folks on Twitter) chipped in with their help for stranded commuters by seeking help with the hashtag #needaride (need a ride), which was indeed very thoughtful! But one question does keep popping up in coffee-table conversations – why this crack down all of a sudden? Why no action was taken all these days? What really changed?

No one knows! No one, except of course the smart alec, know-it-all, who knows it! His theory is that some politician’s son has invested in an electronic meter factory which has huge unsold inventory – and that soon enough the regulation to enforce electronic “tamper-proof” meters will soon be introduced citing mass tampering of manual meters! Whoa!!! Interesting hypothesis indeed, but these nukkad-type, know-it-all guys can’t be believed, can they?

This incident leads me to believe – or rather reinforces my belief - that we have enough laws – all we need is implementation and action against perpetrators of the law!

Why don’t law enforcing authorities crack down on food adulterators, water mafias who steal from BMC and sell to citizens, hawkers/shopkeepers/petrol pumps/utility providers, who cheat by using faulty weights and measures and several other such parasitic elements in our society? Let us hope we see some action in all these spheres. And – why not all these on a regular basis? Why do we need CRACKDOWNs?

“YEH DIL MAANGE MORE!!!”

But for now:
Three cheers for RTO, Mumbai!!!

PS: Dear RTO, Please keep the pressure on, lest they fall back on their errant ways and soon we may have to shell out the Invisible Dishonesty Tax that we had been subjected to until now!