75 people avail Bike Taxis on its first day

As many as seventy-five people took a ride on the Bike Taxis around Newtown on Friday. They were introduced in the area on Thursday.

Alapan Bandyopadhyay, Principal Secretary, state Transport department, said the first ride was free and 75

people had availed the ride. Meanwhile, more than 600 people had surfed the K Bike Taxi app.

Suvendu Adhikari, state Transport Minister had inaugurated Bike Taxis known as 'K Bike Taxi' at a function on Thursday, where he praised Debashis Sen, chairman of Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) for imbibing the idea and Alapan Bandyopadhyay for executing it.

Many aggregators have shown keen interest in introducing Bike Taxis. If successful, this will be deployed in the entire city and the districts soon. A passenger will have to pay Rs 20 for the first 2 kilometers and to cover subsequent distance the person will have to pay Rs 5 per kilometre.

The state Transport department held a series of meetings with senior officials and aggregators before introducing K Bike Taxis. The pros and cons were carefully studied. For the first time, two wheelers have been considered to be used as commercial vehicles with yellow number plates.

Some women drivers are being trained and soon they will be deployed to drive K Bike Taxis.

Bandyopadhyay said the Pathadisha app had gained tremendous popularity with around 13,000 people having downloaded it. The app, which was introduced on Wednesday, was rated 4.3 out of 5.