Swipe a card to pay your taxi fare in Mumbai

Next time you travel in a taxi in Mumbai, you need not pay the fare in cash but can use credit card. Besides, the taxis would have electronic meters and passengers would be given a printed receipt for the fare paid.

These are some of the features in Maharashtra government's proposed "fleet taxi scheme" to be implemented later this year. The scheme, based on taxi service in Singapore and New York, is expected to take off in four months, according to G S Gill, principal secretary "" transport.

"We have already received proposals from two firms for participating in the fleet taxi scheme," he said.

A fleet operator having between a minimum 500 and a maximum 10,000 taxis would be given an operating license, Gill said. However, none of the existing taxi drivers would lose his job as they would be absorbed by the fleet operators, he said.

Around 98 per cent of the about 55,000 taxis in Mumbai are Premier Padminis, which are on an average 15 to 18 years old, Gill said.

The new taxis would be bigger, with a minimum 1,000 cc capacity and offer features like global positioning system (GPS) which would make it possible to track the position of a taxi on Mumbai roads, he said. Each fleet owner would have a control room.

By calling designated numbers, people would be able to get the taxi at their doorstep, Gill said.

The state government wants to have around four to five operators as part of the fleet taxi service, he added.

Each operator's taxis would have a different colour band to help in easy identification of the fleet owner, he said. Recently, senior officials had visited Singapore to study the taxi service operations, he said.

"I have also discussed the issue with New York's assistant commissioner of taxi regulators," he said.