Faulty auto meters, rude auto rickshaw walas, getting cheating by auto drivers – something all of us in India have been a victim of at some point in our lives. One always has to haggle with the auto drivers to avoid paying sometimes 300% of the actual fare. And if you are new in the city then you cannot even be sure whether you are being cheated or not.

Remember the Meter Jam organized to oppose incorrect fares by Auto drivers.

Well in this post, I will introduce all of you to an award winning SMS-based mobile app which will make sure you never end up paying the wrong fare again. And the best part? The service is available in all cities across India!

Ok What is this app?

The app is call ‘AutoFare‘ – helps you pay fair AutoFare..

Since the application is SMS-based, it is possible to use it from any mobile device across any network. The only cost incurred will be the SMS you will send, which well who cares about these days.

Tell me more…

This app has been created by folks at Ideophone who work on developing “location-aware” mobile applications for commuters. The tool is based on txtWeb which is an SMS-based application development platform created by Intuit. ‘AutoFare’ is a very simple to use and extremely useful service to find auto fare between any two locations anywhere in India. The app was launched somewhere around March this year and a great number of people are already using it. The app also went ahead and won Judges choice awards at App2Fame Contest (App2Fame Developer Challenge 2011).

How to use the app?

Using the app is really simple. You simply need to send an SMS to a particular number in a pre-defined format.

Isn’t it real easy? Well to get an even better picture, view the video below. I really liked the app and I think it would a great help for tourists in India.

They have some cool android based app also which you can give a try i.e. if you are an Android user. Yes, I like stating the obvious at times.