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Radio cabs with modern facilities launched in Delhi

     New Delhi: A new set of metro cabs or radio taxies were launched in the capital on Friday foreseeing the upcoming Commonwealth Games. Monitored by a GPS system, these taxies include several security features and the latest passenger-friendly facilities like air- conditioning, mineral water, newspapers and others.

      An outstanding feature of this new concept is that these taxi drivers report to the control room their movement throughout the city to ensure that tourists are not fleeced or taken to wrong destinations. In fact, there is a proposal to replace the outdated and dilapidated fleet of taxis at the airport with modern radio taxis by the end of the year. "You can make payments through credit cards in this taxi. Moreover, it has newspaper facilities as well. If you feel something is wrong or it is going in the wrong direction, you can press the penning button. The most glaring feature of these taxis is that the safety of passengers is ensured. It will be easier to fix responsibility as any individual or corporate will be using it under surveillance," said Haroon Yusuf, Transport Minister of Delhi. While radio cab taxies were launched in Delhi a few years back and licences were issued to six operators, the size of their fleet inducted into radio cab operations is very small. On its part, the Delhi Government has provided a lot of support to radio cab operators at the airport, but the scheme has not achieved the desired objectives. As Delhi is to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games, there is growing demand for good quality safe taxies for citizens, tourists and business travellers. Haroon Yusuf said that the fare of the taxis have been capped at Rs. 15 per km, and described it as a reasonable price considering the features available in the taxi. However, they added that finally it will be the decision of the operator if he wants to give some kind of rebate in the fares during off-peak hours. "A committee was assigned the job of fixing the rates watching its features but it is completely up to the operators what they want to charge during the off-peak hours or provide with some kind of discount," added Yusuf. Shaken by the rising incidents of harassment and killings of foreign and domestic tourists, the Delhi Government has decided to promote the concept of radio taxi service in a big way, allowing them national permit and unrestricted fleet. The Government would soon come out with a comprehensive radio taxi policy to promote this concept of radio communication while travelling. It is expected that nearly 1,000 new radio taxis would hit the Delhi roads by the end of this year. It is learnt that the new policy would also lift the restriction on the number of taxis one could operate under the scheme and aims at having a fleet of 5,000 modern radio equipped taxis in the next few years.

     At present, three companies are operating radio taxis with a total fleet of 136 vehicles. Under the new regime, the Government has allowed the radio taxi operating companies to have advertisements on top of their vehicles. It has also agreed to give them all India permits, thereby allowing them to operate in the National Capital Region (NCR) townships. The manufacturers are expecting at least 10,000 such cars in the capital foreseeing the Commonwealth games by 2010.
-Dec 8,  2006

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