Taxi owners incurring heavy loss in city

Harassment due to refusal by taxi drivers to take passenger is no more limited to commuters, but it is affecting the taxi owners. 

Police slap fines for illegal parking, refusing to ferry a passenger and reckless driving. Drivers are liable for all the offences. But, owners of the taxis need to pay the fines for the mistakes of the drivers. Thus the taxi owners are incurring a heavy loss. 

Bimal Guha, secretary of the Bengal Taxi Association, said the situation was going out of control and taxi owners were incurring loss for a section of drivers. 

The taxi owners’ association had approached the state government to find out a solution in this connection. The representatives from the association are scheduled to hold a meeting with the principal secretary of the state transport department Alapan Bandyapadhyay on Wednesday in this connection. 

Drivers refusing to take a passenger to his or her desired destinations are quite common in the city. Despite taking several steps to check the menace including launching “no-refusal” taxis in the city have failed to check the menace. 

The city police too initiated several steps in this connection. Separate taxi bays have been created where police constables have been posted to help passengers get a taxi. But a section of taxi drivers did not pay heed to the regulations and flout norms. 

Several steps were taken to ease out the problem of traffic congestion in the city after the change of guard in the state. Parking of vehicles on major through fares has been restricted to avoid traffic jams. But the taxi drivers often park their vehicles in the no parking zones as a result the police have to slap a fine. 

But it does not matter to a taxi driver as they did not have to pay for the fines. “It’s the taxi owners who get affected badly as they need to pay the fine,” said Guha, adding that they expect a solution in this regard as it is becoming difficult to incur further loss.