Kolkata: 1,500 cabs penalized for not calibrating meters – Times of India

Kolkata: More than 1,500 yellow cabs, which ran with old meters, were identified by the transport department and fined for non-compliance. The department has collected Rs 45 lakh from the fines.
After being penalized, the drivers recalibrated their meters to the current system.

On June 6, 2018, the transport department revised taxi fare after a gap of five years. From July, the transport department started calibration of taxi meters through its empanelled agencies and set the deadline for the recalibration to August 15, 2018. Later, the deadline was extended till September 1.
Kolkata has 18,000 metered cabs. While majority of the taxis underwent calibration to reflect the exact fare, some skipped the process and kept plying with old meters. Citing “complex calculations of the revised fare”, drivers unscrupulously operating on old meters fleeced passengers, charging a much higher amount than the actual fares.
This is why, during the calibration, it was made clear that cabs with non-calibrated meters will be slapped heavy fine.
After a few complaints of non-calibrated cab meters, transport department ran a scrutiny of its data and found 1,500 cabs did not undergo the calibration process. “We summoned these taxi operators and imposed a penalty of Rs 3,000 per cab under section 192A of Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, for contravention of permit condition,” said Amitabha Sengupta, additional secretary of transport department and PVD director.