No hike in taxi/auto fare soon, Maharashtra govt tells HC

There would be no hike in taxi and auto rickshaw fares in the state in the near future, Maharashtra government today told the Bombay High Court.

There was no proposal to hike the fares, government pleader Sandeep Shinde told the division bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and S C Gupte, which was hearing a public interest litigation filed by NGO 'Mumbai Grahak Panchayat' challenging the hike in October 2012.

The hike was based on the recommendations of P M A Hakim, a former bureaucrat. PIL says that a one-man committee was not sufficient to deal with the issue.

Advocate Shinde today also informed that re-calibration of meters in taxis and autos as per the last fare-hike was complete across the state.

The court then posted the next hearing after two months while admitting the petition for final hearing.

Following an earlier HC order, all the taxis and autos in the state now have electronic meters instead of the mechanical ones.

Uday Warunjikar, counsel for the NGO, had pointed out that as per the Hakim Committee, there should be revision of fare once a year. The next revision was supposed to take place on May 1; but there was no action so far, and if the government was not hiking the fares for now, petitioners had no immediate issue, he had said.