Taximen oppose permit fee hike

Dubbing the decision as a biased one,Ganpat said,“If new permits are issued at Rs one lakh,no driver would be in a position to afford them. Also the government’s decision to allow only air-conditioned and brand new taxis means that only corporate businessmen with huge capitals would be able to enter the business while the traditional,poor taxi owners would be rendered unemployed. The PTCCS has over 100 taxi owners with each driver doing 9-10 rounds between Mumbai and Pune per month.

Meanwhile,the state government’s decision to make Marathi compulsory for taxi drivers in the state had caused a rift between the Pune-Mumbai Cool Cab drivers. While the Marathi speaking drivers had welcomed the decision,their North Indian counterparts had tagged the entire episode as biased and politically motivated. The state government on Wednesday had made it compulsory for the taxi drivers to be able to speak as well as write Marathi.However on Thursday Chief Minister Ashok Chavan did a U-turn and said that fluency in any local language like Hindi and Gujarati was also enough.

“This was a politically motivated decision. Hindi is our rashtrabhasha. It’s been 40 years since we are on the roads and do manage to speak Marathi somehow,but being able to write Marathi is something that most of us won’t be able to do,” said Vijay Mishra,a taxi driver who is affiliated to Mumbai-Pune Taxi Owners’ Association. He said that the association has around 300 taxi drivers and 100 out of them are north Indians. On the other hand,Uttam Chavare,manager,Mumbai-Pune Taxi Owners’ Association had welcomed the decision saying,“If need be we are willing to teach the North Indians to speak and write in Marathi.”