Why just call taxis alone, now booking an autorickshaw has been made easy by autorickshaw fleet ‘Makkal Auto’ through their newly launched android mobile based SMS and whatsapp booking platform.
The trial will go on till July 7 before they are available for full-fledged use for the public.
The mobile applications can be downloaded from Google Play Store by searching ‘Makkal Auto Coimbatore’.
The application provides a map where the user chooses the pick up and drop point.
The map will then show five autorickshaws attached to their fleet that are free and are ready to pick up commuters, from which the customer can choose the nearest one. On choosing the vehicle, the user can also track the distance that the vehicle has to cover to pick up the customer.
The trip to the destination could also be followed.
Using the SMS booking facility, one can send an SMS to 9500400800 with their location, for which the server would send an auto-generated list of five nearby drivers’ numbers, which the customer could call. One could also book using whatsapp with a message of the pickup and drop location to 9597060606.
For those who are not really tech savvy, where customers book their call taxi through the app, to track the cab or in the event of a delayed booking confirmation or non-receipt of cab details, reaching the call taxi operator over a voice call proves to be a Himalayan task.
Two-wheeler riders say partial side vision, sweating leading to baldness as reasons for not wearing helmets. While wearing helmets have become inevitable, a recent incident calls for being extra careful in hitching a ride purely going by the person’s face and not by the colour or make of the helmet. Earlier this week, two couples stopped at a fuel station in Singanallur. After refilling fuel, the wives dutifully got on to the motorcycles only to realise after sometime that they have got on the wrong motorcycle.
The men wore identical helmets and also rode similar motorcycles, resulting in the confusion.
Then the men called each other on their mobile phones to know the location to resume their journey with their better-halves.
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A public friendly initiative recently turned into a nuisance with the callers turning the enforcers into marketing personnel. Recently the Labour Commissioner of Tamil Nadu publicised the mobile numbers of labour officers at the district level in newspapers and in the media to lodge complaints in connection with the fleecing of two-wheeler riders by helmet sellers. But, alongside complaints, officers concerned are also getting many calls only for inquiring the price of a particular model helmet and where to get them.
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Pattali Makkal Katchi leader S. Ramadoss started off his press meet in Coimbatore, held a few days ago, on a very friendly note greeting journalists. He then went on to say whatever he had to say, quoting news from a few papers and also showing a couple of press clippings. But his affable tone ended soon thereafter when a journalist asked a pointed question regarding honour killings and communal clashes. He responded by asking who the journalist was, the paper he represented and then went on to say that those who represented the paper always had the reputation of asking questions that did not behove of professional journalists. His response led to some unpleasant moments in the press meet.
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Farmers accusing the dyeing units in Tirupur knitwear cluster were in news for long. Also it was the farmers’ petition which eventually resulted in Madras High Court issuing orders to close all dyeing and bleaching units.
But rendering an interesting twist to the pollution issues, one of the dyeing units itself had approached the National Green Tribunal (NGT) recently accusing violation of pollution norms at Murugampalayam common effluent treatment plant in which the said unit too was a member.
A dyeing unit turning against its own fraternity members has boosted the farmers’ accusations that pollution still continues in Tirupur knitwear cluster.
( Reporting by M.K. Ananth and Karthik Madhavan in Coimbatore and R. Vimal Kumar in Tirupur.)
