Autorickshaws in Chennai. Review on Chennai

Chennai is a very good metropolitan city, except for the water shortage. But there is a strikingly different aspect to it, which nobody ever really addresses, which is its autorickshaw community.

The public transport system in Chennai consists of buses, local trains, taxis and autorickshaws. Of these, only buses and autorickshaws are the more favoured ones by the public. Trains are not preferred for the fact that they don’t run very frequently and the railway stations are not built at very accessible places. Taxis are few in number and costly.

Coming to our topic which is autorickshaws, they don’t run on meters. Not because there are no rules for that or that the autorickshaws don’t have meters. They just don’t run on meters. There are rates approved by the authorities. But the autorickshaw drivers just charge twice or thrice of those. Their argument is that it is not feasible to drive at those rates.

And if you are new to Chennai, then you had it. They will take you in circles and charge you a minimum of Rs.100 if not more for a distance anywhere upto 2 kms. Please be careful about the autorickshaw rates if you are new to Chennai.

The drivers union and the cartel are so strong that no traveller can protest. The moment a traveller protests, they take to a junction where there will be other autorickshaw drivers and they harass you. Reporting to traffic police also don’t work in many cases, as they are also a receipient of some kickbacks from these people (or so it appears). Of course, there are certain cleaning spree by the traffic police when on some particular day they will try to monitor this.

But generally on a normal day, travelling by autorickshaws in Chennai is a dreadful thing, with a lot of arguments to be done with the driver. The only option now available to the commuter is to know the probable rate to the destination and negotiate it before the trip.

Hope everybody will be careful in future in Chennai while travelling in autorickshaws.