Premier problem robs all the credit of wannabe cabbies

The downswing in the fortunes of Premier Automobiles Limited (PAL), and the virtual halt in the production of the ubiquitous model 137D Padmini has hit them hard. There are no replacements for this model in the market.

Avdhesh Shukla, a 45-year-old taxi driver pawned all his wife’s jewellery with his village moneylender in Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh, and took a bank loan to raise the Rs 2.65 lakh for the Padmini. Ajay Soni borrowed and scraped Rs 65,000 from friends and relatives and a bank loan before hepresented the cheque at the showroom in April.

As a senior PAL official admits, while the company earlier produced over 600 cars a month, it hasn’t produced any in the last three months. Last month, only 100 cars rolled off production lines and the backlog is piling up fast.“We have now approached banks and financial institutions to restart production and help us clear the backlog,” a senior PAL official told Express Newsline.

Meanwhile, the creditors have come knocking on the doors of these wannabe taximen who paid up the full amount for the cars in April, but are unable to begin paying back the monthly instalments in the absence of the cars.

A week ago, bank officials nearly confiscated the taxi of Shukla’s guarantor and it was only timely intervention from Quadros’ union that prevented it from happening.

Unable to pay back, Ajay Soni has already begun ducking friends and bank officials. “They all want their money back, how can I pay them, I now work in a job which pays barely Rs 1,000 amonth,” he laments. Both his taxi driver friends who stood guarantee for him, have already been issued notices from his bank.

“If I don’t get the vehicle before the permit deadline expires, I’ll be finished,” says Soni who is confident that he would have started paying back the loan had he got the vehicle in April.

“The number of taxis is already far in excess of what the city requires,” informed Transport Commissioner Vinay Mohan Lal, explaining why the taxi trade is facing a recession. Parking space for these vehicles is scarce and the taximen themselves had complained of falling business due to an explosion in numbers. There are at present 55,000 taxis registered in the metropolis.

With the virtual halt of the Padmini and the unavailability of other new cars, taximen have started buying petrol engine Padminis and fitting them out with CNG kits.

“We have no option but to wait for PAL to restart production and meet the demand before the October deadline,” says A L Quadros, the generalsecretary of the Mumbai Taximen’s Association. The union obtained this assurance from PAL authorities after holding a demonstration outside the plant at Kurla last Tuesday.