Even after crackdown, IGI still unsafe for foreign tourists

New Delhi: Two days after the murder of a Saudi businessman by a prepaid taxi driver and his accomplices was unravelled by the police, touts continue to have a field day at the airport.
TOI visited the airport on Tuesday night to see if the authorities had got their act together. They had not, it turned out. Despite heavy police and media presence, the usual ''kahaan madams'' had not stopped. Only, the touts had become more furtive.
Within a span of 15 minutes, the TOI team was approached by two touts, offering to go to the desired destination, Laxmi Nagar, for ''just Rs 500''. The prepaid rate for the distance is Rs 350. Several more lurked around but were cautious due to the presence of police personnel.
A group of foreign tourists came out of the arrival terminal and hopped into the first taxi available before them, without any prepaid coupon. This on a day when the police had asked the Delhi International Airport (P) Ltd (DIAL) to ensure that passengers, specially foreigners, took only prepaid or radio cabs.
It has been over seven months since DIAL reorganized its prepaid cab system to the queue format that we see now. DIAL and traffic police appointed marshals and officials to ensure that the notorious tout system came to an end as they personally helped passengers into registered taxis. But this does not seem to have made much of a difference. A DIAL spokesperson, however, said it was a police matter and should be addressed by them.
Foreign tourists fall easy prey to these people because India is one of the few countries that follow the system of prepaid cabs. For foreigners therefore, the idea that a 'visibly government-certified cab' - in this case a black and yellow taxi - may not always be safe, is rather strange.
23/10/08 Neha Lalchandani & Richi Verma/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Oct 2008, Safety Oct 2008