Mukul promises to look into demands of taxi drivers, owners

Trinamool Congress All India General Secretary Mukul Roy today promised to look into the demand of taxi drivers and owners of a fare hike and the grievance about police atrocity.
"I promise to look into the police atrocities... I will request the drivers and the owners to inform me in writing on any kind of police atrocity and it will be my duty to bring it to the CM's notice," Roy said.
He was speaking at a meeting organised by the Bengal Taxi Association here today.
Besides fare hike, the taxi drivers and owners are demanding creation of a fund for drivers and a mediclaim facility for them.

State transport minister Madan Mitra, who recently held several meetings with representatives of various taxi unions, was today conspicuous by his absence.
Holding the erstwhile Left government responsible for all their problems "created during the 34 years of Left rule", Roy said the government needed some time to solve them.

He also said that the taxi owners and drivers should separately decide on their list of demands and then persuade the matter with the government.
AITUC-affiliated Calcutta Taxi Operators Union and the CITU-affiliated West Bengal Taxi Workers' Union had called strikes several times since August 6 demanding that the state government drop legal proceedings against 450 taxis and put a stop to the practice of imposing penalty of Rs 3,000 for passenger refusal.

Bengal Taxi Association general secretary Bimal Guha welcomed Roy's proposal and said that their future course of action would be decided after a meeting of the several unions on November 3.
CITU leader Shyamal Chakrabarty, meanwhile, took a dig at Roy for making the promises to the drivers, saying they would wait for the government to take a decision on the demands and after October 27 a decision would be taken on what to do next.