Taxi touts continue to stalk, harass and fleece passengers at the airport but have shifted their place of operation and modified their tactics to prevent being caught by police.
On Thursday afternoon, at least two touts approached The Telegraph on the arrival level in front of gates 3A and 3C.
“Kothay jaben? Namiye debo. (Where do you want to go. Let me drop you),” a man clad in a green jacket, track pants and sneakers asked.
When told that the drop-off point was a star hotel in New Town, near the New Town bus terminus and around 12km from the airport, the man demanded Rs 990.
Another man in a black sweatshirt and beige trousers asked the same question. When told that the destination was Park Street, he replied that he would not accept anything less than Rs 1,000 for the ride.
When the touts were talking to the newspaper, the app cab fares for the New Town hotel were within Rs 550 and that for Park Street varied between Rs 450 and Rs 600.
The Telegraph recently ran a campaign for a fortnight on various problems faced by passengers at the airport — such as dirty washrooms, car chaos in front of the terminal on the arrival level, harassment by taxi touts, unauthorised parking by VIP cars in front of the terminal and restricted access to Wi-Fi.
The Bidhannagar commissionerate has launched a drive against taxi touts at the airport. More than 50 persons have been arrested in the last few weeks.
Those arrested have been charged under several IPC sections, including 384 (extortion) and 151 (whoever knowingly joins or continues any assembly of five or more persons likely to cause a disturbance of a public place). If convicted, they can be jailed for three years.
The drive followed a meeting between the airport authorities and the Bidhannagar commissionerate, which was held earlier this month.
Increased surveillance by the police and the installation of CCTV cameras at taxi-booking kiosks have forced the touts to modify their tactics and act less brazenly whenever passengers are near the kiosks.
Many of them have shifted their operations to the bus stand in the airport compound.
A sizeable number, however, are still approaching passengers right in front of
the terminal. The usual targets are fliers with multiple pieces of luggage and those accompanied by the elderly or children.
Two police complaint kiosks have been set up on the arrival and departure levels. The kiosks can be approached through gate 3C.
“We will intervene if there complaints regarding taxi touts, illegal money changers and missing luggage, smartphones, laptops and other items,” said an officer of the commissionerate.
