With the proposal in its final stage, haggling with cabbies after alighting at CST, LTT and Dadar stations may soon be a thing of the past

Lakhs of passengers come to the city via trains everyday. Many of these get down at CST, Dadar or Lokmanya Tilak (Kurla) terminus, hail a cab, haggle, and either hop in after a heated argument, or walk to the next one in a huff, but not without fiercely appraising the haughtiness of the hackies.


Counters like this could soon be a reality at stations on the Central Railway

This algorithm of flagging a taxi may soon change. Nearly 14 years after the concept was tabled, you can finally expect the prepaid taxi service at Central Railway terminuses as well.

"We have been getting lots of complaints from passengers about the trouble they face from taxi drivers. So we have decided to start prepaid taxis, just like at the airport.
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Last week, the final letter was sent to the Regional Transport Office (RTO) for approval. Everything, including the placement of the payment booths, has been decided by the railways," said a senior railway official.

Sketches drawn

It was only last week that sketches of spots to be used as the prepaid taxi booths were drawn up for the three major outstation stops on Central Railway: CST, Dadar and LTT.
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The project has been undertaken jointly by the railways, the RTO and the taxi unions. The latter two will make the tariff card specifying fares to various destinations from the stations.

The first proposal of the kind, sent in 1997, never took off, reportedly because of miscommunication among other problems, despite a pile of paperwork hoarding space in the railways' cabinets.

Apart from the booths, rail authorities have also decided to have a parking fleet of 25-30 taxis air-conditioned and otherwise at any given time at each of these three stations for the convenience of passengers.

"We will be providing the place and infrastructure for the prepaid taxi booths. In order to satisfy our passengers' needs, it has been decided to start prepaid taxis/autos at LTT, CST and Dadar initially.
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Later, looking at the response from passengers, we will start the service at Thane and Kalyan stations," the official informed.

The system will be similar to the one at the city airport, and will enable passengers to make fixed payments for the drive, depending on the distance. A similar service is running successfully at the Nagpur station.

Passengers are elated with the railways' initiative. Rahul Kumar, who regularly gets off at LTT, said, "I have been a victim of the high-handedness of the cab drivers many times.

Most times, the taxi meters are tampered with. Other times, drivers trouble passengers by asking for extra fare after reaching the destination. Thankfully, these will be things of past now."

A K Singh, PRO, Central Railway, said, "We will be implementing the prepaid system very soon at the three major stations.

Now, passengers can breathe easy after getting off board the trains as they will not have to bicker with taxi drivers about overcharging."