Auto-rickshaw and taxi fares across Thane and the wider Mumbai Metropolitan Region went up on September 1. An auto ride now starts at Rs 27 for the first 1.5 km instead of Rs 26, and a black-and-yellow taxi at Rs 33 instead of Rs 31. Beyond that, the per-kilometre rate rose to Rs 18.22 for autos and to Rs 21.90 for taxis, up from about Rs 17.14 and Rs 20.66 respectively.

The meter is where this gets complicated. The Thane Regional Transport Office has issued an advisory that every auto and taxi meter must be recalibrated before the revised rates are applied, while giving the trade until November 30 to get it done. Until a particular vehicle’s meter is updated, the number on the display is not the amount payable. The driver reads the old meter and converts it using the official RTO tariff card.

Why there is a three-month gap at all

The MMR runs roughly 4.5 lakh auto-rickshaws and more than 50,000 kaali-peeli taxis. A technician has to open, reprogram and seal each electronic meter at an authorised centre, and no one was going to get through half a million of them in a week. So the transport authority set one date for the fare and a later one for the hardware.

The revision itself follows the Khatua committee formula, which ties fares to vehicle prices, the consumer price index and interest rates on vehicle loans rather than to negotiation. This is the first revision in about 18 months, the previous one having come in February 2025. Thane’s deputy RTO named those same inputs, purchase cost, CPI movement and loan rates, as the basis for the new numbers.

Drivers absorbed a second cost on the same date. Mahanagar Gas raised CNG by Rs 2 a kg to Rs 88 from the same midnight, citing costlier imported gas. Nearly the entire auto and kaali-peeli fleet in the region runs on CNG, so the fare increase and the input-cost increase landed on drivers and passengers on the same day.

What it means for a Thane commuter

In rupee terms the change is modest. A five-kilometre auto ride works out to roughly Rs 91 at the new rates against about Rs 86 earlier, an increase of around six per cent. Short hops of a kilometre or two move by a rupee or two.

The arguments over the next three months will be about which fare is the correct one. Three things are worth carrying into an auto:

• If a meter has not been recalibrated, the fare must come off the printed RTO tariff card, and the driver is required to show it. A driver who refuses to produce the card is the one at fault, not the passenger.
• Some meters have been updated. Paying the tariff-card conversion on top of an updated meter means paying the increase twice, so ask which of the two applies before the ride ends.
• Fare disputes go to the RTO or the traffic police, and the vehicle’s permit number on the badge or the rear panel is what a complaint needs.

What to watch

Enforcement starts on December 1. Drivers who have not recalibrated by then face penal action, with a daily fine of Rs 50 subject to a Rs 5,000 ceiling under consideration. Whether the RTOs can inspect that many vehicles is another matter, and previous transitions left a long tail of unrecalibrated meters running into the following year.

The other thing to watch is the gap with app-based cabs, which set prices by demand and fall outside this order. Every meter revision narrows the cost advantage of hailing an auto off the street. If the recalibration window turns messy, more Thane commuters will open an app instead.

Sources: Free Press Journal, India TV News

This report was compiled and written with AI assistance from publicly reported sources, and reviewed for accuracy.