Thursday, July 29, 2010

Do you know you are being fleeced daily?

How many times have you fought with an autorickshaw driver about his tampered meter? Little do we realize how easy it is for him to get it rigged.

Rreporters went to Broadway Lane in Shivajinagar which has about seven meter repair shops. Posing as engineering20 for every Rs 100,” he said.



Kilometre tampering
students working on a project on tampered meters, we asked mechanics to explain the rigging process. While most shops acknowledged that tampering is common, they denied doing it.

We managed to convince one mechanic to give the details. “At least ten drivers come to my shop every day. I fix only ordinary meters, not the digital ones. Those are done in Kalasipalyam. We usually charge Rs 80 to Rs 100 for tampering,” he explained.



HOW METERS ARE TAMPERED

1.Wheel alteration



One way to tamper an ordinary meter is by wheel alteration. There are three to four wheellike components in the meter which are rigged according to how fast the pulse should be. The cost for doing this varies with the pulse rate you want. For instance, for a 10-paise jump, the charge could be between Rs 100 and Rs 350. For digital meters, however, it’s Rs 500 for a 10-paise jump and Rs 800 for a 20-paise jump.

“We need to change the rate at which the wheel-like components in three or four places. For the meter to change at 1.5km instead of 2km, we fix an increase of 20 paise per pulse. If you fix 20 paise, you’ll see an increase of Rs 15 to Rs


Ideally, the meter starts ticking over only after the mandatory first 2km. “In kilometre tampering, the meter changes at 1.5 km itself. But the commuter won’t notice the difference. Unless you’re sure about the distance, you cannot identify the quick meter change. When you compare with an untampered meter, you can see the huge difference,” a driver said.



2.Pulse tampering



This is the mother of all methods. Drivers admit that once the pulse of a meter is tampered with, then everything is rigged — distance and amount.



WHERE IS IT DONE



Auto repair shops which fix meters are found across the city — from Shivajinagar Broadway area, Mysore Road,

Goripalya, Kalasipalyam, City

Market, among others.



HOW THEY EVADE CHECKS



Auto drivers are well networked and when they see RTO inspections taking place at some place, they inform other drivers and take a detour and avoid the spot.



AUTHORITIES IGNORANT



Strangely, officials at the department of legal metrology don’t seem to be clued in to how easily auto drivers get their meters tampered. Instead, they claim that tampering has decreased. “Tampering has decreased drastically over the past few years because we book a case and refer it to the RTO and take stringent action. You won’t find many autos with tampered meters,” said M Gopalappa, assistant controller, department of legal meterology.

When asked whether they raid places where tampering is done, he said, “Tampering is mostly done by drivers themselves. There are 52 mechanics licensed by the department and they will not tamper,” he added.

There are 25,000 to 30,000 autos with digital meters and 43,000 with ordinary meters. Till March 2010, around 500 cases of tampered meters were booked

Ref: Toi

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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Pathan Brothers Lead India to Victory


Pathan Brothers Lead India to Victory, Both with the bat and ball they outperformed, When the score was 113-7 both of them came to ground and batted with confidence and leading India to victory with 4 balls to spare. Congrats to both Yusuf and Irfan Pathan.

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Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Fedrer needs a Mentor!


Losing one classic match is bad enough but to lose two in less than seven months was simply too much.
After his dreams of winning a record-equalling 14th Grand Slam title were ruined by Nadal in five sets on Sunday, the time has come for Federer to take action and he might start by seeking a full-time coach.

With the ability to conjure magical shots at will, the Swiss master is probably the most gifted player the sport has ever seen. Winning 13 Grand Slam titles in just over five years bears testimony to his talent.
But since Nadal has now beaten him in five of their seven Grand Slam final meetings, Federer needs to explore new avenues.
Whereas most top players have a small army of people to turn to when the going gets tough, Federer travels with a tiny support group led by girlfriend Mirka Vavrinec, whose many roles include media manager, business adviser and occasional hitting partner.
Since parting ways with Swede Peter Lundgren in December 2003, Federer has opted not to work with a full-time trainer.
He hired Tony Roche and Jose Higueras on a part-time basis, mainly to draw on their claycourt expertise, but those relationships fizzled out when Federer failed to capture the French Open trophy.
Federer now needs the guidance of a mentor who can not only push his game to a higher level but also help find and exploit weaknesses in world number one Nadal's game.
"He needs a coach," US Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe said. "He's never had to adjust to something because he's been so talented he could go out there and figure it out.
"All of sudden he's playing a guy he can't do it against. He's so stubborn."

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Saturday, January 31, 2009

Sania Mirza win Australian Open


Sania-Bhupathi (India )win Aus Open mixed doubles beating Nathalie Dechy (France )and Andy Ram (Israel) 6-3, 6-1 in the final in Melbourne on Sunday afternoon.
The ace Indian pair thus made up for the disappointment of last year when they were beaten by Tiantian Sun and Nenad Zimonjic in the final.
While Sania picked her maiden Grand slam title in the process, Bhupathi swelled his Grand Slam title collection in mixed doubles to seven.

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