Hiring autorickshaws turn ordeal at Vadakara Railway Station

Vadakara: The Vadakara railway station, where the autorickshaw booth has already stopped functioning, is now without the service of home guards as well. This has made finding an auto a difficult task for the commuters. Faced with a shortage of autorickshaws, passengers are often left with no other option but go walk till Edodi by carrying their luggage alongwith.

Earlier, when the auto booth was operational, passengers could queue up, pay Rs.1 and receive a token to hire an auto on a priority basis. With the system no longer in place, many auto drivers are now refusing to operate short-distance trips. When a home guard was on duty, such refusals were not allowed and drivers had to accept passengers irrespective of the distance

Only those autorickshaws that paid the station fee were permitted to pick up passengers from the railway station. The RPF would impose fines autorickshaws that attempt to take passengers after merely dropping someone off. However, most of the time, there aren’t enough auto rickshaws available at the station. In the wake of this situation, scenes of passengers running after autorickshaws that arrive only to drop passengers have become a common sight here

The Rs.1 token fee collected at the auto booth goes to the Vadakara Rotary Club, which set up the booth. The amount, credited to a joint account of the Club and the police, was meant to be spent for station-related expenses, including facilities like alert boards along the road, as well as for maintaining the autorickshaw booth itself. The booth, however, ceased operations once maintenance works on the railway station were launched.