The agitating taxi drivers have demanded that they be allowed to charge fares without running the meter.[break]
Taxi drivers obstructed the road at Durbar Marg for around an hour from 12:30 in the afternoon. The Nepal Meter Taxi Entrepreneurs´ Association (NMTEA), however, denied its involvement in the protests.
“We have never been for such protests and this was done on initiation of the drivers who were fined for tampering with their meters,” NMTEA President Ram Bahadur Shrestha said.
Eyewitnesses claimed that around 15 taxis gathered at Durbar Marg suddenly and obstructed the traffic on Wednesday. The protesting drivers then stopped other taxis, asked the passengers to get off, and asked the drivers to join them. Most of the drivers obliged but the agitating drivers also stopped the taxis whose drivers were unwilling to join them from the area.
Traffic police claimed that the drivers didn´t budge until they were warned that crane would be used to remove their taxis.
The Metropolitan Traffic Police Division (MTPD) has been taking action against around 40 taxi drivers everyday for the past week for meter tampering and charging exorbitant fares with passengers. They have been fined anything from Rs 200 to Rs 4,000 by the Nepal Bureau of Standards and Metrology (NBSM).
Undeterred by Wednesday´s protest, traffic police has vowed to take tough measures against agitating cabbies from Thursday. “We will try them under Public Offense Act if they continue with their protests tomorrow,” Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Binod Singh said.
Meanwhile, the Consumers´ Rights Protection Forum (CRPF) has welcomed the government crackdown on unscrupulous cabbies. “If any taxi drivers claim that it is their right to cheat people, they should be banned from operating taxi service,” CRPF General Secretary Netra Dhital opined.
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