Before you start clicking your tongue at the announced auto fare hike, have a look at how big a hole public transport in major cities across the world burns in commuters’ pockets.
Take the case of Paris. The minimum taxi fare is 5.60 euros (about Rs 365), with the meter galloping by 1euro every additional kilometre.
“It may be a Mercedes, but when you want to get from point A to B, every rupee, or rather every euro pin-ches,” said travel professional Sohail Khatri, who often travels to Europe.
A taxi ride to get a glimpse of royalty in London doesn’t come cheap either. The minimum fare is 2.20 pounds (about Rs 175). Drawing a comparison with Mumbai, Khatri says the average salary of middle-level executives in Europe is about Rs1 lakh — at best, three times that of a middle-class person here. “And in terms of spending parity, when the taxi fare is 15-25 times more, you get a fair picture of how expensive taxis are in other parts of the world.”
From the West (New York and Berlin) to eastern megacities like Tokyo and Hong Kong, taxi fares are in multiples of that in Mumbai.
Even a city like Dubai charges a minimum taxi fare of 10 AED (about Rs 130). “In terms of fuel costs, petrol is priced at Rs25 per litre in Dubai and the minimum fare is four times that amount. Comparatively, in Mumbai, the price of CNG is Rs41 per kilo, whereas the minimum fare of taxi is just one-third of that,” said M Shankar, who worked in Dubai for four years before returning to a PR job in Mumbai last year.
Closer home, Delhi too fleeces more. While the minimum fare for autos there is Rs19, flagging down a taxi costs Rs20. “Even Kolkata, which has a reputation for being a price sensitive city, has a minimum taxi fare of Rs22 and the taxi men are asking for Rs30. So, we are much better off in Mumbai,” said Prabhadevi resident Tirtha Chatterjee.
