With footfall increasing in Hills, steps to check overcharging

With the mercury shooting up in the plains and Kashmir remaining out of bounds, tourists are making a beeline to Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Sikkim. And thus, as an obvious, a palpable increase in tourist influx is visible in these places giving rise to a number of complaints of overcharging by both taxis and hotels.

The Darjeeling Association of Travel Agents (DATA) has made an appeal to the administration and police to look into this issue. Along with this, DATA has also requested VIPs to avoid the Hills during the tourist seasons as vehicles are randomly requisitioned for the VIPs which further aggravate the situation of both vehicle shortage and traffic jams owing to route restrictions for VIP movement. "There is a shortage of vehicles as a large number of tourists are visiting the Hills. Many taxi syndicates taking undue advantage of the situation create an artificial shortage of vehicles and increase fares manifold. On top of that, vehicles requisitioned for visiting VIPs causes a lot of problems.

The administration should either use government vehicles or requisition vehicles from neighbouring districts where tourists do not visit," suggested Pradeep Lama, General Secretary, DATA. He further stated that the district administration and police should take necessary steps to curb the menace of overcharging by both hotels and taxis. "In many of the hotels in Darjeeling, there are no tariff cards. Rates are decided on demand. Rooms that sell for Rs 800 are being sold for Rs 4,000 owing to the shortage of accommodation.

Same is the case of taxis charging manifold," alleged Lama.

Sikkim has already taken cognizance of the problem and has issued strictures. The office of the Superintendent of Police (East) and Traffic Branch Gangtok has issued strictures that overcharging by taxis will amount to cancelling of driving licenses and cancellation of trade license in case of hotels and travel agencies. Surprise checks too have been initiated by the Sikkim police and administration.

Recently, Goutam Deb, Bengal Tourism Minister had held a meeting with concerned stakeholders, administration and police to curb this menace. He had ordered the administration and police to keep a check on this and adopt strong measures.

Spurred by this, the Darjeeling Police on Friday held a meeting with the Hotel Owners Association and various taxi syndicates.