A taxi meter with a built-in printer produces a bill mentioning the distance, fare, vehicle number and driver’s details. (Bishwarup Dutta)

Calcutta High Court has set a six-month deadline for all taxis in town to install tamper-proof meters with a built-in printer each that can provide fare bills mentioning the distance, vehicle number, driver’s name and his contact details.

The division bench of Chief Justice J.N. Patel and Justice A.K. Roy on Friday asked the transport department to ensure all taxis complied with its order, which came in response to a petition by a Calcuttan who had had enough of taxis with rigged meters taking him for a ride.

Petitioner Pradip Kumar said few taxis plying in the city — the current fleet is 21,000-strong — had fare meters with printers. “Even those with printers can’t (or won’t) provide passengers with fare bills. A printed bill should mention the registration number of the vehicle along with the name and phone number of the owner or driver of the car,” he suggested.

Kumar said meter tampering was so rampant in the city that passengers needed to be legally protected from fraud. “Most taxis charge excessive fares. Without printed bills, passengers have no way of knowing exactly what distance they have travelled and calculate the legitimate fare.”

The petitioner argued that such a system would not only force drivers to turn honest, but also help a passenger trace a vehicle if he or she mistakenly left behind cash, valuables and important documents.

Metro has been highlighting the tamper truth about the city’s taxi fleet in a series of exposés since 2009. On July 29, a sting operation by the transport department caught the city’s lone government-appointed testing centre giving “pass” certificates to taxis with rigged meters in a farcical test.

The transport department has been since trying to get taxi operators to switch to meters with printers, albeit without success. Officials see Friday’s court order as just what the doctor ordered for the city’s taxi fleet, notorious for not only fleecing passengers but also being rude to them.

“We have been working on ways to revamp the meter-testing system and the court’s order is another big step forward. We have held a series of meetings with private taxi operators and hope to come up with a solution soon,” said a senior officer of the transport department.

For commuters like bank employee Sampurna Chatterjee, hailing a taxi now means being ready to be fleeced. “I take a taxi to my BBD Bag office from Behala almost every other day, knowing that the fare reading won’t be fair. But there is little I can do about it except decide never to board a taxi again. I have lodged complaints on a few occasions and got no response,” she said.

A lawyer representing one of the taxi owners’ associations at Friday’s hearing said around 8,000 of the 21,000 taxis plying in the city had meters with built-in printers.

What about the rest? “Taxis older than 15 years are not allowed to ply within the city. The owners are waiting for these vehicles to be phased out before buying new ones with meters that come with printers,” the lawyer said.

He cited cost as a constraint. “A taxi owner needs to spend at least Rs 10,000 on a printer. The court should consider this as well.”