Karnataka: Kempegowda International Airport to get pink taxi from Monday

Bengaluru: In order to cater to solo woman or group of women travellers commuting to city from Kempegowda International Airport (KIA), Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation (KSTDC) will introduce pink taxis, driven by women.

These cabs with a pink bumper will be introduced from Monday and initially 10 such cabs are being inducted to its fleet of about 850 Airport Taxis.

The initiative is being taken up to ensure safety of single woman travellers and also provide employment for women drivers. These taxis will be equipped with GPS devices, RFID tags, MDT devices and also panic buttons and shall be monitored round the clock.

The cabs will also serve 24X7 and the women commuters can avail their services through KSTDC's call centre number 080-44664466.

The pink taxi tariffs are fixed at Rs 21.50 per km between 6 am till midnight and at Rs 23.50 per km between midnight and 6 am.

Authorities say that the women drivers are well trained, are capable of self-defence and they would mainly drive for all women or single women travellers.

Tourism Minister Sa. Ra. Mahesh said, "It would be a great success as it would provide the desired safety and confidence to the single woman commuter with the implementation of all modern IT systems and technologies to ensure reliable, safe and transparent travel."

KSTDC has been operating Airport Taxi service at BIAL since 2008. The total number of taxis for KSTDC has been recently increased to 850 taxis (650 AC and 200 non-AC taxis) from 650, and approval for pink taxis were given as part of this expansion.

For taxi operators the department has introduced a fair system for taxi registration and those interested can do so online. They can log in on to www.kstdc.co and get online approvals in a transparent manner.