Kathmandu, May 27

The Metropolitan Traffic Police Division today said it booked 582 cabbies found guilty of cheating commuters in the Kathmandu Valley in the past one-and-a-half-months.

According to the MTPD, on-duty traffic cops initiated evidence-based action against unscrupulous cabbies during the period. The law enforcement agency launched fresh a crackdown on cabbies charging high fares, and running taxi without fare-metres, with tampered metres and broken seals on April 19.

“As many as 582 cabbies have faced action under the Motor Vehicle and Transport Management Act, 1993 for acting in contravention of the law during the period from April 19 to May 26,” read a figure released by the MTPD. Of them, 461 cabbies had refused to serve the passengers by turning on fare-metres and were referred to the Transport Management Office, Lalitpur for necessary action.

The TMO fines such cabbies Rs 2,000 each.

The bureau fined cabbies transporting passengers without fare-metres, with tampered metres, broken seals and defunct metres Rs 2,000 each.

Similarly, 63 cabbies were found to have tampered with fare-metres. If a taxi driver is found operating with a tampered metre, the National Bureau of Standard and Metrology may impose on him/her a fine of up to Rs 5,000 along with a warning in the first instance to fix the metre.

Traffic police refers the cases related to metre-tampering to the NBSM for investigation.

During the operation, 58 private cars were also caught transporting passengers and collecting fare. Recently, it has begun keeping a tab on taxis, in the daytime and at night, when cabbies try to fleece passengers taking advantage of emergencies and non-availability of public vehicles.

Plainclothes traffic cops have been deployed in the guise of passengers in busy thoroughfares round-the-clock to monitor and regulate taxis.

Around 7,000 taxis operate in the Valley.