Thursday, May 5, 2016

Auto Strike in Bhubaneswar

How silly this can be !!! The Auto Ricksaw drivers in Bhubaneswar hate competition from the cab services OLA, UBER etc. Demanding to sustatin their  monopoly, they went on strike strike today - Commuters be damned.

The Consumer should be the King, the Customer should be God. Competition is is always best for the consumers or commuters. A plethora of available  options always leads to freedom of choice and reduction in fare.

Thanks to Dipti bhai, my only tryst with smartness in the so called Smart City of Bhubaneswar came during my last trip through my experience with OLA, a cab service similar to Uber. He used the OLA App to call the cab services to fetch me from Swosti Grand, near Master Canteen to my home in Old Town.

It arrived promptly at the doorsteps of the hotel in less than 5 minutes. My trip to home cost me only Rs.109. Impressed with the promptness and convenience of the service, I promptly tipped the driver handsomely. He earned my respect and in return, I earned a gracious thank you note from him.

"Auto" cracy is at its worst in the city of Bhubaneswar. They want to outsmart and out run each other in the rat race of catching the next BHADAA, the Odia term meaning rental passengers.

No one clutters the road more than these recalcitrant autos. There's hardly any designated Pedestrian or Zebras crossing in Bhubaneswar. You have to tip toe and sway your hips, waving and clenching hands like an eunuch towards the incoming traffic to cross the road. Road crossing is an art and one needs to be a trapeze artist to cross the crossroads of Bhubaneswar. I hope more, sustained competition ameliorates the traffic nuisance, ending the "Auto" Crazy.

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