The Hindu Business Line : Taxiing into a monopoly?

AS Kerala seeks to consolidate its enviable ranking as one of the most preferred destinations for travellers and tourists from around the world, once in a while the odd blip on the radar sends across a wrong signal to the world at large. One such happening occurred last week in Thiruvananthapuram, one of the key points of entry into God's Own Country.

The issue was the proposal by the Trivandrum International Airport to introduce the `rent-a-car' system for the users of the airport. Predictably enough, the taxi drivers' union was up in arms. The Trivandrum Airport Taxi Drivers Welfare Association has opposed the proposal. It passed a resolution at its recent 17th meeting, announcing that it would be forced to launch an agitation against the move of the airport authorities to entrust the taxi service at the airport to private parties in a phased manner.

The association claims that other airports in the country had either scrapped the system or were on the verge of doing so. However, the Trivandrum airport authorities had begun inviting tenders to introduce the very system that its counterparts had chosen to dump, a spokesman of the association was quoted as saying.

As anyone who has had the fortune or misfortune to try and bargain with a cabbie at the Trivandrum International Airport will understand, the Trivandrum Airport Taxi Drivers Welfare Association is a mighty force that cannot be wished away. The association boasts over 300 taxi drivers attached to its service, operated according to a Memorandum of Settlement reached with the Airports Authority of India and modelled on the basis of a High Court directive.

No one can deny the right of the association's members to ply their cabs from the Trivandrum airport. In fact, it may even be argued that they have a claim to some sort of privileged status by virtue of being locally based and claimants to some historically conferred access rights.

What, however, cannot be condoned is their claim to exclusive rights. Such claims were behind the ugly confrontations, not long ago, between the association's members and private tour operators who tried to transport their charter-flight clients in their own vehicles.

Such an uncompromising stance only reinforces the negative image of a labour aristocracy that rules Kerala. In this context, it is pertinent to recall the recent statement in Thiruvananthapuram by the President of the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), Mr G. Sanjeeva Reddy, that labour would do well to opt for crafty negotiating skills or arbitration to settle issues with management, rather than launch agitations and forms of direct action.

That is an advice that the Trivandrum Airport Taxi Drivers Welfare Association ought to seriously consider. They ought to remember that they thrive on the fact that more and more travellers land at the airport. Gone are the days when they could rely on the business provided by the migrant Malayalee worker returning from the Middle East. Most such travellers now have their - or their families' - own means of transportation to take them home.

So it is the independent domestic and foreign tourist the taxi drivers will have to fall back on. The fate of the Trivandrum Airport Taxi Drivers Welfare Association is in some ways linked to the fortunes of Kerala's tourism industry. According to official statistics, around three lakh tourists visited the State in 2003.

The tourism sector contributed a revenue of Rs 5,938 crore to the State, of which the foreign exchange earnings alone amounted to about Rs 983 crore.

Surely that is a pie the Trivandrum airport cabbies cannot afford to throw away.

The writer can be contacted at kgkumar@gmail.com

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