It should be a tale familiar to anybody who has tried flagging down an autorickshaw in heavy rain in Bangalore. Caught in a downpour, Anil Shetty was forced to spend a couple of hours trying to catch an auto or thumb a ride from a passing car in Seshadripuram sometime last year. When he finally made it home soaked to the skin, the 26-year-old says he reflected on why nobody had stopped for so long. "I realised it was because of a trust deficit. We need to facilitate trust, build peace," he says, with a Zen-like reaction. Shetty, an entrepreneur, was already heading the World Peacekeepers Movement, founded by Huzaifa Khorakiwala, the son of Wockhardt founder Habil Khorakiwala and head of the Wockhardt Foundation, as part of which they had created a "peace army" and peace clubs in colleges, to spread the message of peace. To make the concept more tangible and adopt a pragmatic approach, Shetty hit upon the idea of launching 'Peace Autos'.
Auto drivers, he says, are ambassadors of the city but they have collectively earned a bad reputation, some of which he acknowledges is well-deserved. But he decided to hear their side of the story, and try and change the discourse, with this initiative. The drivers of these autos are trained to be polite to passengers, never to overcharge, obey the traffic rules and be in uniform. The autos also have reading material for passengers, a number to call in case you have trouble, a green "Peace Auto" sign and inspirational quotes. Launched on October 2 last year with seven autos, the fleet has now expanded to 75, and the aim is to take this to 500 by the end of the year. Khorakiwala, based in Mumbai, says the idea was to promote harmony between the passenger and the auto driver and once they rope in 1,000-2,000 autos in Bangalore, they would take the movement to other cities like Mumbai.
N Raghu, one of the first to convert his auto into a "Peace Auto" says passengers look out for these vehicles, and usually have a good first-impression about the driver. One of the seven initially approached by Shetty, Raghu says there are several good drivers among the 130,000 in the city but about 30 per cent over-charge and have given the community a bad name. The 30-year-old says drivers of Peace Autos are verified by the foundation, from their addresses to whether they have any complaints registered against them. Drivers are recruited strictly on the basis of reference. When they started out, they had been promised compensation in case their revenue suffered but the drivers never had to resort to that, says the 30-year-old, who sports a Peace Auto badge.
Since they launched, a few Peace Auto drivers have hit the headlines for their honesty, one being an incident where a driver returned a passenger's iPhone. There has also been some bad press with a passenger filing a complaint about a driver for verbally abusing her and threatening to physically assault her after she refused to pay extra. Nandini, the passenger who requested that her surname be withheld, says she had hailed a Peace Auto that day in pouring rain because her previous experience travelling in one had been excellent. This time, however, the driver demanded extra money and when she tried to write in his complaint book, he snatched it from her and threatened to hit her. She got out, filed a police complaint and blogged about her experience, which was picked up and highlighted in a local paper. Shetty quickly moved into damage-control mode and got the driver to apologise to the passenger, and he apologised on his behalf as well. He says the misunderstanding arose partly because of the language barrier, though Nandini mentions that the driver had leaned out of the auto and said "Ey, tumko maar dega." Shetty adds that this was the first time an auto driver was apologising publicly, and Nandini says she accepted his apology.
Shetty says the foundation had also organised an award ceremony last month, at which awards were given to 20 drivers in categories like "Best auto driver" and "Best social service". "It was the first time anybody was holding an award ceremony for auto drivers in a five-star hotel," he says, proudly. Apart from expanding their number, on the cards is a line of 'Gulabi Autos', driven by women, (when asked about the colour stereotype, Shetty says the name was popular), and a structured training programme for drivers, to be conducted with Bangalore Political Action Committee.
Whether all this will help Bangalore's auto drivers to reinvent their image would probably depend on how many join the Peace brigade, and if all those drivers remain 'peaceful'. But no one would argue that the city needs more auto drivers who agree to go strictly by the meter.
