Kaalipeelis in south bombay make hay while Best stays off the road

Mumbai: A wise person once said, “One man’s loss is another man’s gain”. In this case, kaalipeeli’s in south Mumbai were indeed at a gain as Best lost its commuters after its employees assumed strike from Sunday midnight until Monday evening. With not many options at their behest, commuters had to settle for cabs, most of which refused to ply on regular metre rates and charged almost triple the usual ‘share’ taxi rates.

Transport commissioner Praveen Gedam said that RTO squads were deployed to prevent this exploitation but it could only be prevented so far. Commuters were fleeced outside Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) for almost the entire Monday. A taxi driver, who refused to charge commuters on metre, said, “I am not taking anyone on metre. Everyone is providing share services and charging Rs 20 per seat for Colaba and Rs 40 up to gateway.” Another share a taxi driver outside the station confessed that business is better than most days as he counted the money while waiting for his next batch of passengers. “It usually takes 15 minutes to fill my taxi in non-peak hours but today the taxi is getting full in less than five minutes.”

Mr Gedam said, “We have already sent out our flying squads to look into the matter and are operating out of the BMC’s control room to keep a better eye out on the ground.”