KOLKATA: From deploying officers in plainclothes, who would pose as passengers to nab touts, to positioning men in uniform in front of the entire go out gates of the airport terminal — the Bidhannagar commissionerate is all set to begin a fresh drive against taxi touts at the airport.
Deputy commissioner (headquarters) of Bidhannagar commissionerate Amit Javalgi said, “We are conscious about the issue. We do take action once in a while on this regard. We shall get started a fresh drive once more to verify the airport premise is free of touts. Our primary purpose is to convey the passengers’ focal point to the pre-paid taxi counters. Hence, we shall deploy policemen outside each go out gate to steer passengers leaving the airport to the pre-paid taxi and app-cab booking counters.”
TOI has been highlighting since remaining week how touts have returned to the airport and are taking frequent flyers and tourists for a experience after they land in the town and come out of the terminal. While airport authorities raised the problem in the recent airport advisory committee meeting and blamed police officers for no longer being able to rein in the touts, the police passed the dollar onto the previous. Cops alleged non-cooperation on part of the airport authorities and claimed that they were not allowed to arrange a couple of police helpdesks by way of airport officials bringing up space crunch.
Sources at the airport said the taxi tout business was once managed by way of teams belonging to three individuals — Kalidham, Rajkumar and Shakti. Each of them have a couple of touts and a number of other automobiles working underneath them. The 3 teams have carved out the arriving zone amongst themselves. “Touts owing allegiance to the Kalidham group pay money for unsuspecting passengers that go out via 1A/1B and 2A/2B. Similarly, touts in the Rajkumar group pick up passengers from gate 3A/3B while the ones in the Shakti group operate in the most profitable international section, focused on passengers that go out via 4A/4B and 5A/5B,” a supply said.
All the touts are adept at profiling passengers and prey on both first timers to town or the ones from the Northeast in the home section and foreigners, mostly Bangladeshis, exiting the international arrival terminal. According to the supply, the Kalidham group has a fleet of 30 automobiles, the Rajkumar group has 45-50 automobiles and Shakti group controls 40-45 automobiles. The cars have each personal and business registrations and are parked both in the driveway earlier than the terminals or at the outdated car parking zone subsequent to the Volvo bus stand.
In order to curb the tout threat, police officers have additionally started profiling the automobiles parked at the airport premises and have started sporting out random assessments of parked automobiles. Both personal and business quantity plate-bearing cars are being checked to determine if they're run by way of the unscrupulous businesses.
“We have started a drive to check parked automobiles, particularly the ones with personal quantity plates sporting passengers out of the airport. We are questioning the passengers as neatly while they go away the premises. If we find that they have been misled to e-book automobiles, we immediately penalize the drivers to the music of Rs 3,000,” a senior officer of the traffic department said.
The officers have additionally requested the agency manning the car parking zone to keep a watch out for automobiles with faux parking tickets. “We recently caught various automobiles using faux tickets throughout the car parking zone. We have handed over the ones drivers to the police,” an reliable of the car parking zone management agency said.
Deputy commissioner (headquarters) of Bidhannagar commissionerate Amit Javalgi said, “We are conscious about the issue. We do take action once in a while on this regard. We shall get started a fresh drive once more to verify the airport premise is free of touts. Our primary purpose is to convey the passengers’ focal point to the pre-paid taxi counters. Hence, we shall deploy policemen outside each go out gate to steer passengers leaving the airport to the pre-paid taxi and app-cab booking counters.”
TOI has been highlighting since remaining week how touts have returned to the airport and are taking frequent flyers and tourists for a experience after they land in the town and come out of the terminal. While airport authorities raised the problem in the recent airport advisory committee meeting and blamed police officers for no longer being able to rein in the touts, the police passed the dollar onto the previous. Cops alleged non-cooperation on part of the airport authorities and claimed that they were not allowed to arrange a couple of police helpdesks by way of airport officials bringing up space crunch.
Sources at the airport said the taxi tout business was once managed by way of teams belonging to three individuals — Kalidham, Rajkumar and Shakti. Each of them have a couple of touts and a number of other automobiles working underneath them. The 3 teams have carved out the arriving zone amongst themselves. “Touts owing allegiance to the Kalidham group pay money for unsuspecting passengers that go out via 1A/1B and 2A/2B. Similarly, touts in the Rajkumar group pick up passengers from gate 3A/3B while the ones in the Shakti group operate in the most profitable international section, focused on passengers that go out via 4A/4B and 5A/5B,” a supply said.
All the touts are adept at profiling passengers and prey on both first timers to town or the ones from the Northeast in the home section and foreigners, mostly Bangladeshis, exiting the international arrival terminal. According to the supply, the Kalidham group has a fleet of 30 automobiles, the Rajkumar group has 45-50 automobiles and Shakti group controls 40-45 automobiles. The cars have each personal and business registrations and are parked both in the driveway earlier than the terminals or at the outdated car parking zone subsequent to the Volvo bus stand.
In order to curb the tout threat, police officers have additionally started profiling the automobiles parked at the airport premises and have started sporting out random assessments of parked automobiles. Both personal and business quantity plate-bearing cars are being checked to determine if they're run by way of the unscrupulous businesses.
“We have started a drive to check parked automobiles, particularly the ones with personal quantity plates sporting passengers out of the airport. We are questioning the passengers as neatly while they go away the premises. If we find that they have been misled to e-book automobiles, we immediately penalize the drivers to the music of Rs 3,000,” a senior officer of the traffic department said.
The officers have additionally requested the agency manning the car parking zone to keep a watch out for automobiles with faux parking tickets. “We recently caught various automobiles using faux tickets throughout the car parking zone. We have handed over the ones drivers to the police,” an reliable of the car parking zone management agency said.
Kolkata: Fresh drive to check taxi tout menace
![Kolkata: Fresh drive to check taxi tout menace]()
Reviewed by Kailash
on
July 17, 2018
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