It may not be hard to predict who is faster (or rather less slow) – the traffic in Mumbai, known to be moving at a snail’s pace, or the Mumbai Traffic Police (MTP henceforth, nice abbreviation- isnt it?).
I had a bad experience of being fleeced by one of the cabbie of a “cool cab” (the blue ones). The date was 11th March this year when I had taken the cool cab from Mumbai airport to my office at Fort, South of Mumbai. I was overcharged by almost 250 bucks!! I ended up paying around Rs 650 for a trip that should have cost me Rs 400 – I realised only later through my colleague that I have paid more since this was my first (and mostly the last) experience with the cool cab. Feeling cheated, I took upon it and decided to register a complain against the cabbie – luckily I could recall the vehicle number. Phones did not work so I decided to look for an online medium to do so. I googled and bumped upon the MTP complain page, and submitted my request not amounting to an FIR. All this I did within hours of my reaching the office.
Days went by and nothing happened. In fact, I had forgotten the whole incident when suddenly someone at the MTP woke up and sent me the following email on April 15:
“Sir/Madam,
Your complaint No. is 75 /JT.C.P/TR/ACP-SOUTH/EMAIL/2008
Traffic Control Branch has taken note of your complaint and concerned traffic division has been directed to take necessary action. regards,”
Even more days have gone by and I am sure by now hundreds of customers would have been ripped off while some of them would have had a heated argument and hence were lucky enough to pay what the taxi driver deserved. I see no follow up on my complain. Probably the IT systems at MTP departments are clogged too or this must be the usual snail pace of the Mumbai Traffic police. Hopefully, some day I will see some action!!
