One sure sign of Kolkata’s backwardness must be the utter chaos perpetrated by the army of autorickshaws (or just autos) on the roads. Anyone who has the misfortune of negotiating traffic at Ultadanga underpass will vouch to what unruly autos are capable of every single day.
It’s similar story at Jadavpur, Garia, Behala and other places. People are literally consigned to the fate that no amount of their acute hardship on road can make the autos see reason. Why only autos, even the private buses and most state buses rule the road as if it is their ancestral property.
Coming to my saying ‘backwardness’, it is so because the autowallahs are totally immune from any amount of policing. The police in fact have no control on them, governed as they are by the rules by virtue of their collective affiliation to local trade unions (mainly CITU).
This effectively translates to any person, who is a member of a trade union, driving an auto, and in many cases he may not even have a valid license for himself or for his vehicle.
Like hawkers on thoroughfares, autos too enjoy free run with virtually no accountability (save that to their unions), and the whole thing presents a dismal picture of traffic on road. At some places like Diamond Harbor Road in Behala, a lot of road space is eaten up because of them, resulting in frequent fatal accidents.
Is there a way out? None unless – according to me – the economy develops. Because till the touchy question, ‘What will happen to these people if their earnings stop?’ is satisfactorily solved, we the Kolkattans will continue to suffer inconvenience caused by them.
You may say many Indian cities have similar problem but they are better off than Kolkata. True, but nowhere is the traffic police made so decidedly ineffective by the might of ruling party unions. Then again, Kolkata autos don’t run on meter, they ferry passenger point-to-point and even sit them in the front on extended seats.
Which all are reasons why Kolkata autos simply have no parallel anywhere. They are a law unto themselves, no matter it’s just a few hundred of them that make life hell for millions.
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