Taxi Tug-of-War at Bagdogra Airport upsets travellers

MANAS R BANNERJEE, SNS, BAGDOGRA,15 DECEMBER: Police have virtually failed to tame unruly car drivers, who allegedly demand exorbitant fares from passengers at the Bagdogra Airport, even as the Prepaid Taxi Booth run by the Siliguri Metropolitan Police have failed to fulfill travelers' demands. Tourists, especially those headed for Gangtok in Sikkim, are not able to hire a taxi from the prepaid booth, as the drivers have not accepted the rates set by the police.

Police have also failed to prevent the drivers from demanding Rs 3,500 from passengers for a ride from Bagdogra to Gangtok. "The government rate is Rs 2,280 for a car falling under the SUV category for Gangtok, but the drivers do not want to accept that rate. They want Rs 3.500," police sources said.

Significantly to manage the drivers, police do not provide air-conditioned car at present, though the passengers used to avail of the facility earlier. Tourists, who had availed of AC cars earlier from the the booth at the same rate, have now become upset about being given the non-AC car," sources said.

More often than not, drivers quarrel with each other as they bargain with passengers and offer them different rates.

The Sikkim government has fixed the rate at Rs 3,500 for an SUV car from the airport to Gangtok, while the government here has not yet revised the previous rare, which was fixed in 20011," a local driver said at the airport today.

A senior tour operator, Samrat Sanyal, also said that the rate was fixed in 2008."State tourism minister Gautam Deb had held a meeting with officials, including the Siliguri police commissioner, for revision of the fares for cars run by the police. But the rate is yet to be revised," Mr Sanyal said. Police commissioner, Niraj K Singh,who is out of station, was not available on the phone for comment.

Not only Gangtok, passengers wanting to hire cars for Darjeeling and other places, including Kalimpong, Dooars even Siliguri town, can't avail of the prepaid taxi service run by the Siliguri Metropolitan Police.

"All drivers do not want to ferry passengers to Darjeeling. A section, which is not enrolled in our list, prefers to go to Darjeeling. Similarly, police can't provide services to all travelers from the prepaid booth," official sources said. ''A section of the passengers also wants to travel on a shared fare with other passengers. But this facility is also not available at the prepaid booth. Passengers become upset here. Even as they compare the system here with prepaid booths in other cities," they said.

Notably many passengers prefer to take the bus run by the North Bengal State Transport Corporation. However, the NBSTC has introduced only one small bus from the NJP to the Airport and it runs twice a day.

An assistant professor of an engineering college at Kokrajhar in Assam, Pankaj Pratap Singh, who came from Delhi, was in search of a car or an auto rickshaw at the Bagdogra Airport today. One Nitish Kumar Singh, who had bought an auto rickshaw under the state government's Gati Dhara scheme finally agreed to ferry the professor to Siliguri at Rs 120. Auto driver Nitish, who had just dropped a passenger at the airport from Darjeeling More at Rs 200,had bought a coupon of Rs 15, which is actually meant for two-wheelers, to stay for four hours inside the airport premises.

Similarly, another auto driver Tinku Saha, who had brought passengers from Siliguri to the airport at Rs 300, was waiting for passengers outside the main gate-. "I had to buy a token for parking inside, but the local drivers forced me out of the parking area," he lamented.

(To be continued)