: More than a month after the Uber cab rape case in New Delhi, which prompted the police in most Indian cities to step up alert on taxi services, the Thiruvananthapuram Rural police are yet to do a check on taxi services in Technopark.
According to Rajpal Meena, Superintendent of Police, Thiruvananthapuram Rural, cab services in Technopark are hired by the firms themselves and it is their responsibility to verify the antecedents of the drivers.
Besides, there had been no complaints or incidents of harassment by cab drivers in Technopark where several women employees depended on these services, even at odd hours, he said.
“If we get a complaint or if a firm has suspicions about a particular driver, we can look into it. The cabs at Technopark have been operating for many years, and so far, we have had no such complaints,” he said, adding that, however, the Rural police had collected details of most of the autorickshaw drivers, including those of the prepaid ones, operating from Kazhakuttam. On the other hand, in the city limits, an effort has been made to collect details of most of the taxi drivers, according to City Police Commissioner H. Venkatesh.
Crime conference
“A day or two after the Delhi incident, the Traffic Police were asked to collect details of all taxi drivers. I believe the process is on. This is on the agenda in the forthcoming crime conference for the city later this week, during which the officers would be asked to speed up the process,” Mr. Venkatesh said.
He said the aim was to have a databank on all taxi and autorickshaw drivers in the city.
Details of prepaid autorickshaw drivers and those operating women-friendly autorickshaw services had already been collected, while those of taxi drivers operating from the airport and other areas would be collected soon, he said.
“A verification process itself would serve as a warning and once a databank is ready, it would be helpful to trace the driver in case of a complaint,” Mr. Venkatesh said.
City police collect details of taxi, auto drivers
Databank to be ready soon: Commissioner
