Udupi: Licence display system in auto rickshaws soon

Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (SM)

Udupi, Jul 20: A month ago, a student of Manipal University had allegedly been kidnapped and gang-raped by three men who came in an auto rickshaw. For the next one week, the police inspected around 10,000 auto rickshaws in a bid to catch the accused, and once caught, the three turned out to be rickshaw drivers.

One of the major outcomes of the Manipal gang-rape case is that the police department in the district is now planning to introduce mandatory rickshaw driver display system or license display system for the protection of passengers from criminal-minded drivers.

With the implementation of this system the level of harassment of passengers by auto rickshaw drivers will reduce drastically, police hope.

The system will help bring transparency for the customers' benefit. The driver's details and photograph will be displayed behind the driver's seat so that passengers can clearly identify him.

Passengers can note down the drivers name, contact number, address of the driver, vehicle registration number, the driver’s blood group, DL number and batch number in order to file a complain to the police or the transport department, in case of any harassment or misbehavior by the driver.

Such a system has been introduced with the Bangalore Traffic Police and it has been successfully managed.

Besides this, a unique code system will also be introduced. This will enable the department to track the auto-rickshaws.

The department will implement the above at the earliest.

An exclusive follow up of the Bangalore project will be conducted and feasibility study will also considered, before the installation of the same.