SILIGURI:People from hills can easily make it out in Siliguri, mostly quarrelling with unscrupulous rickshaw pullers for their abnormal fare for the Bengali non-speaking people. Moreover, now hills people are more dependent on Siliguri for medical assistance, higher education, political asylum etc. After receiving lot of complaints from the passengers for charging abnormal fare for rickshaw. Siliguri Municipal Corporation today introduced a fare tariff for rickshaws in a bid to end the “monopoly” of the town’s rickshaw pullers.The newly introduced fare tariff is likely to be implemented next month. Addressing the SMC board meeting here today, Siliguri mayor Mr Bikash Ghosh, said: “After the implementation of the fare structure, the rickshaw pullers can charge Rs 4 per km from the passengers and an additional Rs 2 per km for onward journey. In terms of hours, the charges would be Rs 15 per hour.” We have introduced a fare tariff for rickshaws for the first time in the town. The tariff cards would be installed on the tariff boards of all the bus stands in the town. Apart from this, all rickshaws would also be carrying the tariff,” the mayor, said.He added that if the rickshaw pullers were found guilty of violating the SMC norm, strict action would be taken against them.
