MUMBAI: Under fire from taxi unions and political parties, Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan on Friday reversed a government decision that would make speaking Marathi and 15 years’ domicile mandatory for taxi drivers in Mumbai.
On Wednesday, Chavan’s government had decided that 7,500 new driving licenses for taxis in Mumbai would not be issued to anyone not fulfilling the new domicile and language skills criteria.
Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a function here on Friday, Chavan said the media had blown the issue out of proportion and that the government was only following the Motor Vehicle Rules framed in 1989 according to which taxi drivers should know any of the local languages that include Marathi, Hindi or Gujarati and should be domiciled in Maharashtra for 15 years or more.
On Friday, Chavan said categorically that a taxi driver in Mumbai should know either of these languages and should have lived in Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, for 15 years.
According to Congress party sources, Chavan had to go back on the move after being reprimanded by the party’s high command in Delhi. The leaders told him to maintain status quo and refrain from making a hasty decision.
“We do not believe in discrimination. We did not discriminate before, nor would we ever do so in future,” Chavan said Friday.
Congress and NCP leaders told Arab News that Chavan stoked the Marathi issue to gain votes for his party in the forthcoming elections to the Mumbai Municipal Corporation. Eighty percent of taxi drivers in Mumbai come from two north Indian, Hindi-speaking states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
