Just 25% of public vehicles in city have working GPS

New Delhi: Nearly 75% of all public service vehicles in Delhi — including autorickshaws, taxis, buses and school vehicles — don't have functional GPSdevices, leaving them untraceable and unsafe, the latest summary report by the Delhi government's transport department reveals.

"This is a big concern for us as it involves the safety of passengers travelling in these vehicles," a transport department official said. GPS is a major security component in Delhi's public transport.

The department has recently set up an operations control centre from where all public service vehicles in the city can be tracked through GPS. Data compiled by the department on vehicles that can actually be tracked in real time revealed that only one in four public vehicles had functional GPS devices. The data excludes app-based cab aggregator services, for which a policy is still being drafted.

The department has started a drive to get owners of autorickshaws, taxis and other public vehicles to install GPS devices as it is part of the permit conditions. These devices were made mandatory on autos and taxis in 2009. Following reminders, the department plans to slap fines of up to Rs 5,000 on errant vehicles.

Just 5% of taxis can be tracked by transport dept

Figures compiled by the department reveals that while all autorickshaws are installed with GPS devices, the devices are functioning in only about 43% of the vehicles. The data for taxis is more worrisome. There are about 40,000 taxis in the city, including kaali-peeli ones, but less than half of these - 19,423 - have GPS devices while less than 5% of all taxis can actually be tracked by the department.

The GPS devices installed in public service vehicles require a SIM card for GPS activation, which can be bought from vendors empanelled by the department. The reason why so many GPS devices can't be tracked even after being installed is that the SIM cards are not recharged by vehicle owners. "Vehicle owners many times go for cheaper variants of GPS devices to save money and recharge their SIM cards only during the time of the annual fitness test to avoid paying a penalty. They recharge the cards only for a month or so and the rest of the year the devices remain nonfunctional," the official said.

"We are going to publish public notices informing vehicles owners to get their GPS devices rectified if these are not in working condition. From February, we will start sending challans and showcause notices and crack down on those not confirming with permit conditions by imposing a fine of Rs 5,000," the official said. He added, the department was meeting all GPS vendors and directing them to ensure that there is no dearth of GPS devices in the coming weeks.

Autorickshaw and taxi unions, however, termed the fine of Rs 5,000 too steep and have demanded recharging of SIM cards to be bundled with the cost of the GPS device. "It is troublesome to replace SIM cards regularly," said Rajendra Soni, general secretary of Delhi Auto Rickshaw Sangh and Delhi Pradesh Taxi Union.