Kolkata:
Starting tomorrow, taxis in Kolkata will be off the city roads for an indefinite period in support of various demands by the owners including a fare hike and dropping of legal proceedings against 450 cabbies.
The CITU, along with five other trade unions, had called the indefinite taxi strike, eighth time since August 7 and a total transport strike on September 19.
"From tomorrow there will no taxis on city roads till the government listens to our demands... We will continue it and want to see an end to it," CITU state president Shyamal Chakraborty told PTI today.
West Bengal Transport minister Madan Mitra said the government would take all necessary steps to tackle tomorrow's taxi-strike and ensured that taxis would ply on the roads. Requesting taxi unions to keep away from the strike, Mitra alleged taxi drivers as well as the unions were "cheated" by the Left-backed trade unions.
"We would not allow any kind of transport strike and I request the unions not to participate in any form of strike... They are actually being cheated by the CPI(M) leaders who do not have any existence these days," Mitra said.
Since August 7, taxi unions have been calling flash strikes, demanding the state government to raise fares, drop legal proceedings against 450 taxi-owners and put a stop to imposing penalty of Rs 3,000 for passenger refusal.