Kolkata: The state government’s newly-launched app ‘Yatri Sathi’ meant for offering cab rides to passengers at a lower price in comparison to the fares charged by private app cab aggregators is gradually being embraced by more and more yellow taxi drivers and passengers in the city.
“We have launched a pilot project involving the yellow taxis that travel to and fro from the pre-paid taxi booths at Howrah Station and Kolkata airport. The state Information Technology and Electronics (IT&E) department has developed the app, and after three months of trial run, if it is found that the app is auguring well among the drivers and the passengers, the state Transport department will take it up from the IT&E department and it will be rolled in the entire city,” Snehasis Chakraborty, state Transport minister said.
The state will be running this service in no-profit-no-loss mode and will take only a small amount as maintenance charge from the drivers who will come on board. The state government has deployed manpower at the pre-paid taxi booths in Howrah and airport to assist the passengers in booking taxis through the ‘yatri sathi’ app.
“The wide-scale roll-out of this app will benefit both — the drivers and the passengers. The app cab drivers do not need to pay high commission to the owners once they embrace this app. The passengers too will be able to take a taxi ride at a reasonable rate,” a senior official of the transport department said.
Bengal Taxi Association (BTA) had given the proposal to the transport department to introduce such an app. Accordingly, there were a series of discussions and recently, the trial run of the app has begun. Some 600-700 cabs running in
the city have already embraced the app.
“It is a very positive move on the part of the state government, keeping in pace with the changing times. The refusal of taxis will go down and with the app being a secured one, the finances involved will be within the state and not go out as happens in case of cab aggregators like Ola, Uber,” Asim Bose, general secretary of BTA said.
The challenge will be the fact that all cab drivers running yellow taxis do
not have android phones, Bose pointed out.