Team Blitz India
MUMBAI: The fare of shared taxi services on the Nashik, Shirdi and Pune routes from Mumbai have been increased in the range of Rs 50 to Rs 200.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Transport Authority (MMRTA), has approved the fare revision of black-andyellow non-AC taxis and blue-andsilver AC taxis on these three routes. For AC taxis, passengers boarding from Mumbai will have to pay Rs 100 more for Nashik and Rs 200 more for Shirdi, while they will have to pay Rs 50 extra for both AC and non-AC taxi travel to Pune.
The revised fare of AC taxis on the Mumbai-Nashik and the Mumbai-Shirdi routes will be Rs 575 and Rs 825 instead of the current Rs 475 and Rs 625, respectively. The fare of non-AC taxis on the Mumbai-Pune route will be Rs 500 instead of Rs 450, and for the AC taxis it will be Rs 575 instead of Rs 525.
As per the minutes of the meeting, the fare revision was approved considering the report of the Khatua panel which was set up for revision of taxi fare, and the demands made by taxi unions who are operating on the routes.
The authority has not announced the date for the implementation of this fare hike though it is most likely to come into effect from April. It has directed the RTOs to display the revised fare prominently at their taxi stands that are located at Dadar in Mumbai. The Mumbai-Pune taxi route is 155 km long, while the Mumbai-Nashik and Mumbai-Shirdi are 175-km long and 265-km long, respectively.
MMRTA has revised the taxi fare on the Mumbai-Pune route in less than three years as earlier it had approved the fare in August 2021.
But the transport authority had not revised the fare on the Mumbai-Nashik and Mumbai-Shirdi routes since September 2013.
The Mumbai Taxi Association, one of the major taxi unions, had been demanding a fare revision on the Mumbai-Nashik route since December 2021, but the transport authority had not taken any action. It, however, approved the demand for a fare revision on the Mumbai-Pune route in August 2021.
