In an effort to prevent the occurrence of a sexual crime akin to the alleged rape of a 25-year-old woman by a taxi driver witnessed in New Delhi, the Mumbai Police on Tuesday directed all the 28 cab operators in Mumbai to provide data of the drivers employed by them in the metropolis.
On a day when the Radio Taxi Association of India representing all the licensed radio taxi operators across the country, issued a statement contending that their taxies were “safe, reliable and trustworthy”, the city police asked all the cab operators, including the ones like Uber, Meru Cabs, Ola Cabs, Tab Cabs and Easy Cabs, to furnish details of drivers employed by them.
Moreover, police have also began checking the credentials of the regular black and yellow taxi drivers operating in the city.
Confirming the development, Deputy Police Commissioner Dhananjay Kulkarni said that in the wake of the New Delhi incident, the city police had undertaken a drive to compile the data of regular and private taxi drivers operating in the city, so as to act against and weed out the ones with “criminal antecedents”.
“We have asked all the 28 private cab operators in the city to furnish us the data of cool cab drivers employed by them. Similarly, we are obtaining data of regular black and yellow taxi drivers from the Road Transport Office. Once we have the date with us, we will check the criminal antecedents, if any, of the drivers concerned,” Kulkarni told The Pioneer.
More than 2 lakh black and yellow taxies and an estimated 15,000 cool cabs are currently operating in the city.
Meanwhile, the Radio Taxi Association of India, representing all the licensed Radio Taxi operators, were following all the rules and guidelines — including verification of the drivers, GPRS tracking of all taxis, drivers training for servicing various customer profiles — issued by the State Transport departments.