A steep hike in autorickshaw and taxi fares is likely this week with the four-member M. Ramachandran committee on fare revision submitting its report.

The Transport Commissionerate on Monday commenced scrutiny of the report that has recommended an increase in minimum auto fare from ₹20 to ₹30 for 1.5 km and that of taxis from ₹150 to ₹200 for five km.

₹12 a km

For every km after the first 1.5 km, auto commuters will have to pay ₹12. For taxis, it will be ₹15 a km after the first five km.

Taxi union representatives, who demanded an increase in minimum running charges, wanted ₹450 to be the fixed minimum charge for 10 km for vehicles below 1,500 CC and ₹24 for each extra km. For vehicles above 1,500 CC, they demanded an extra charge of ₹30 while traditional taxis demanded only ₹20.

Waiting charge and night-time travel charges are also in for a hike.

The committee also turned down a demand of the taxi union representatives to ban online taxis. The traditional taxi owners had been pressing for a uniform rate for all online vehicles. The online drivers union wanted the government to decide fares in the sector and bring them under a common platform.

This week

The report, with the recommendations of the Transport Commisionerate, is to come up in the Cabinet this week as the State Auto Taxi Light Motor Drivers Coordination Committee, which met in Thrissur on Sunday, has called for an indefinite strike from November 18 in view of the delay in increasing the fares.

Taxi and auto workers had been demanding an increase in fares in view of the over 80% hike in the price of fuel, 50% in insurance rate, 40% in spare parts rate, and 20% in labour charges since 2014.

Besides former Kerala High Court judge Ramachandran, former Director, National Transportation Planning and Research Centre T. Elangovan, government nominee K. Niyati were the members and State Transport Commissioner K. Padmakumar the member-secretary.

The taxi and auto fares were last hiked on October 1, 2014.