For women and girls living in the city sitting
inside a local taxi is perhaps one of the toughest challenges they have to face in their daily lives.
Four passengers are huddled up together in the back seat of a local cab like sheep and goats. While the total seating capacity in the back seat is three, the cabbies take in four passengers much to the agony of the women passengers.
Many women passengers have complained that they are left with no other option but to share the little space in the back seat with male passengers despite lot of discomfort and embarrassment.
Many of them have complained that they feel uncomfortable with the seating arrangement but the local cabbies seem to have no concern.
If one goes by the word of the State Transport Minister, the system of loading four passengers in the back seat amounts to violation of the Motor Vehicles Act.
“We urge the passengers to complain to us if the taxi drivers are found to load people beyond the seating capacity,” Transport Minister AT Mondal said.
Meanwhile, countering the Transport Minister’s comment, W Jyrwa, general secretary of East Khasi Hills Local Taxi Association said that the cabbies had the right to take four people in the back seat since the sharing system is followed in the State.
“We can put passengers as per the seating capacity if the reserved system is followed in the State but here we follow the sharing system,” Jyrwa added.
To sort out the problem, the State Government had introduced the women taxi service earlier this year whereby only women passengers are allowed to board these taxis but the initiative has failed to yield any positive response from the public.
One silver lining for these women passengers is the SPTS buses which have now provided respite to them. But then, these buses do not ply on all routes in the city and their frequency is also vague, rued some of the women passengers.
It is now hoped that the remaining number of SPTS buses, which have begun arriving in the city, and the proposed maxi taxi services would go a long way in providing a comfortable ride around the city to the women passengers, who are otherwise left to the mercy of the taxi drivers.
(Afaque Hussain)