Cabs, taxis everywhere, but none for hire

The long weekend due to the festival holidays has come as a blessing for travel agencies in the City.

However, this has put several Bangaloreans to hardship as they have not been able to get taxis for their commute within in the City as well as to other destinations, particularly during emergencies.

For Koramangala resident Radhika, finding a cab to visit her cousin in Sarjapura on Sunday morning was a pain as no cabs were available with the travel agencies. “I called up at least 10 cab service providers, only to hear a ‘no’ from them.

They said that all cabs have been booked for the weekend and have moved out of Bangalore.  Even when I called the ‘just dial’ service for a cab, the service provider called back to inform that there was no vehicle available for customers in Bangalore City.”
 K R Suresh, a resident of Nandini Layout, went through an ordeal on Saturday as he could not get a taxi to attend the funeral of one of his relatives who passed away at Gauribidanur in Chikkaballapur district.

“Seven of us wanted to travel. But agencies said they did not have a vehicle to accommodate so many. After a great difficulty, I managed to get a small car (Tata Indica). While five of us squeezed in, two others dropped out,” said Suresh, an employee in a State government department.

One of the cab owners said that many commuters had booked the taxis well in advance to travel to various tourist and pilgrim centres for the holidays. Some bookings were done in the last minute. “If two or more holidays are contagious with the weekend, there is definitely good business for travel agents and cab owners.

The demand has been so huge since October 1 that despite several hundreds of taxis in the City, operators have not been able to meet the demand,” said Deepak Bharadwaj, who runs a travel agency on Richmond Road.

Not just the private players, the government-run vehicles too have become a big hit. According to an official from the Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation, all package tours are booked to capacity. “We could not take any fresh bookings as all tour packages to different parts of the State were filled. We could only accommodate when there were cancellations at the last minute,” added the official.