A prepaid taxi booth at Howrah station. (Gopal Senapati)

Prepaid taxi fares in the city have jumped almost 20 per cent since February, but there’s nothing official about it.

“We have not revised taxi fares. If passengers are being forced to pay inflated fares, they can approach the police or lodge a complaint with us,” transport minister Ranjit Kundu told Metro, insisting that he was unaware of prepaid taxi counters charging passengers more than the legitimate fares over the past six weeks.

Pankaj Saraf, a resident of SN Roy Road in New Alipore, is one of the many passengers to have questioned the arbitrary hike, only to be told off. “I was at the prepaid taxi booth outside Howrah railway station a fortnight ago and was taken aback when the man at the counter handed me a charge slip for Rs 150 for a trip to New Alipore instead of the legitimate fare of Rs 135. When I protested, he rudely told me to take it or leave it,” Saraf recalled.

Union members insist that the hike is based on a “fare review pending implementation since 2008”. A senior functionary of the Bengal Taxi Association said the “new fare structure” took effect on February 1.

Prepaid taxis operating from Howrah, Sealdah and the airport are affiliated to either the Bengal Taxi Association or the Calcutta Taxi Association. Prepaid booths at all three places are run directly by these two unions.

The prepaid booth at the airport now charges Rs 230 for a taxi till Mahatma Gandhi Road, which is Rs 15 more than the sanctioned fare of Rs 215. At the prepaid booth in Howrah, the fare till Esplanade has shot up from Rs 60 to Rs 75. Prepaid taxis at Sealdah have been charging Rs 65 for a trip to Esplanade, up from Rs 50.

When Metro visited the prepaid booths last week, not one had the “revised” fare chart. “It’s obvious that higher fares are being charged on the sly,” a passenger said.

So is the government pretending to be unaware of the hike after silently giving its nod as a pre-election sop? “Taxi fares, both normal and prepaid, are decided by the transport minister and officials of his department after several rounds of meetings with the associations. Then the hike is announced in advance. It’s not as simple as it seems,” an official said.

The sudden fare hike is not the only instance of the taxi unions making their own rules. Passengers who hire prepaid taxis are required to pay a service charge of up to Rs 10 for every ride. They are also charged extra by the drivers for luggage exceeding two or three suitcases.

Frequent flier Mayank Agarwal said he had lodged complaints against prepaid taxi drivers at the airport for harassment on a few occasions, only to realise that they enjoyed immunity irrespective of the seriousness of the charge.

“You sometimes have to walk for half a kilometre with your luggage just to locate the taxi allotted to you. Then the driver throws a tantrum on seeing your luggage and asks for extra money. Worse, the prepaid booth won’t entertain a complaint against the driver,” Agarwal said.

According to the Bengal Taxi Association, around 4,000 passengers use prepaid taxis from Howrah, Sealdah and the airport every day.