Think before you board that taxi

If you are boarding a taxi from the Indira Gandhi International Airport, keep your fingers crossed. If your taxi is unregistered, you could end up getting fleeced, abducted or even killed.

If you are boarding a taxi from the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, keep your fingers crossed. If your taxi is unregistered, you could end up getting fleeced, abducted or even killed.

HT Image

The airport is infamous for incidents of cheating and assault by unregistered taxi drivers.

To put an end to the menace, all taxi drivers operating from the airport were supposed to be provided biometric identity cards last year after police verification and registering of their taxis.

The biometric system will only allow authorised taxis and authorised drivers to operate at the airport and record will be maintained linking passengers with the taxi registration numbers.

Though the verification and registration process has been done long ago by the Delhi Police, private airport operator Delhi International Airport Ltd. (DIAL) is yet to distribute all the cards. The system, as a result, is gathering dust.

Police booths, barriers and biometric card readers have come up at the airport but the records are still kept manually.

“The verification and registration process is over and trial runs have also been conducted but the biometric cards have to be provided by DIAL,” said O.P. Mishra, Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI Airport).

There are almost 2,000 taxis that ply from the international and domestic terminals of the airport.

At least two drivers ply these taxis in different shifts and there are many who don’t have licenses or registrations.

The unregistered taxis are the biggest danger for passengers.

A DIAL spokesperson said, “So far 1,025 taxi drivers have been issued with Biometric Access Cards after Police verification.”

But he claimed the Delhi police was not done with the verification of all the drivers. More than 3,000 taxi drivers operate from the airport.

The process of booking a taxi at the pre-paid booths is also not properly streamlined as most passengers coming out of the airport are immediately accosted by taxi drivers who start haggling over the fare.