Meet to take measures to rein in rogue taxi drivers in the hills

EOI, DARJEELING, OCT 18, 2024: The Darjeeling district administration on Friday invited tourism stakeholders, including the taxi syndicates and the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, to deliberate and find solutions to the growing menace of traffic congestion and the increase in taxi fare by drivers during the tourist season. The Darjeeling Additional Regional Transport Officer, H.T. Bhutia, said helpline numbers will be set up for the public to lodge their grievances even though approval for upgraded fare charts was yet to be provided by the state government transport department.

"We have requested the taxi syndicates to share the directive with the drivers to not charge excess fare. A year back, we had sent a proposal to the state transport department to provide us with the display fare charts, but we have not yet received the approval," he said. The ARTO admitted that the public were being overcharged by the taxi drivers but left it to the traffic police department and the GTA to deal with the issue.

The Himalayan Transport Coordination Committee vice president, Bidhant Tamang, admitted that some drivers of other syndicates were charging exorbitant fares and urged the GTA to intervene. "The drivers that are charging inflated fares do not belong to our syndicate and are not our members. We have requested the GTA to issue registered stickers to identify the rogue drivers. We have been given assurance by the council body," he said.

The Gorkha Ekta Chalak Sangathan (GECS) said it would extend all cooperation to the district administration and the GTA to curb such illegal activities by the drivers. "These are individual cases. We have not given any suggestion to charge increased fares. We cannot stop such acts, but appeal to all the drivers to refrain from overcharging the public," said Bharat Tiruwa, representing the GECS.

Tiruwa, however, expressed surprise that the transport department has not been fully transferred to the GTA. "We found out today that the transport department has not been transferred to the council body. It is unfortunate that since 2008 new rate charts have not been prepared for tourist destinations like the Darjeeling hills," he said.

For the 87 km ride from Darjeeling to Siliguri and vice-versa, passengers are charged Rs. 250 per head. However, during the tourist season, citing unavailability of vehicles, the drivers hike the fares exorbitantly, leaving the passengers in a lurch.

In the meeting, the stakeholders also placed suggestions which included introducing smaller-sized long-distance public buses, allowing tourist vehicles from other cities only up to Rohini in Kurseong and Ghoom, and not allowing these vehicles to do sightseeing, to help curb traffic congestion in the town area.

The GTA Pool and Transport Department Sabhasad, Uday Dewan, said, "Some of the syndicates suggested that vehicles from outside be stopped at Rohini and Ghoom. Thereafter, the local taxis could ferry the passengers to the town. It was highlighted that outside vehicles and the big state government buses cause traffic jams. We (GTA and district administration) will deliberate on these suggestions."

Dewan said the proposal of the GTA placed before the state government to approve a separate Regional Transport Authority Board of the GTA was yet to be given the nod. "If the GTA had their own RTA, then we would be able to fix the fare and take up different initiatives," he said.

To deal with the issue of complaints of taxi fare hikes during festivals and the tourist season, a decision was taken today to issue helpline numbers and email IDs where complaints can be registered and action taken accordingly. These numbers and email IDs will be put up in taxis along with hoardings. In today's meeting, it was also decided that to make people aware, the information will also be announced on the public address system.

Several tourists complained of getting stuck in traffic jams for hours, due to which they were forced to change their schedules. Dipankar Roy, a tourist from Cooch Behar, said, "After crossing Kurseong, we started getting stuck in traffic jams in different places for more than an hour. I saw that this was happening even though the traffic police were doing their work diligently. There should be a good traffic management in place.