180 more tourist autos soon
May 8, 2011 , Deccan Chronicle
Tourist-friendly autos, a campaign to promote auto drivers as tourism ambassadors and be courteous to the domestic and foreign tourists, has evoked good response prompting officials to launch 180 more autos shortly.
“There has been an increasing demand among auto drivers and tourists for more such autos, from various parts of the state, giving positive indications to the popularity of this scheme,” a senior official of the Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC) said.
Speaking to this correspondent on Saturday he said about 145 tourist friendly autos would be introduced Chennai besides 15 in the temple town of Kancheepuram and 20 in the world renowned heritage site of Mahabalipuram, soon.
“Ours is the only state in the country which has been implementing this unique scheme successfully and Tamil Nadu is likely to be a role model to Gujarat which recently introduced this concept,” he added.
It was introduced in Chennai on a pilot project basis in December 2007, and over 249 auto rickshaws are plying in various parts of the state. Chennai has 113, Kanyakumari: 18, Rameswaram: 43, Courtallam: 16, Madurai: 7, Tiruchi and Thanjavur: 26 each.
The TTDC has been receiving requests from auto drivers from several parts of the state and the requests have been forwarded to the state transport and home departments for verification of their antecedents and final approval.
“Only after both the departments authenticate the drivers’ credentials, we ahead and include them in our scheme,” the official said and added the verification was essential to weed out those with criminal background.
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Has anyone tried these autos ....
Regards,
Subbu