Fourteen taxi touts have been arrested at the Kolkata airport in the past month, a senior officer in the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate said on Sunday.
All the touts who were caught were allegedly involved in illegally offering rides at exorbitant rates to fliers landing in the city, the officer said.
Plainclothesmen have been deployed at several places in and around the airport to keep an eye on taxi touts. They move around the arrival level of the terminal building, in front of the old domestic terminal and near the prepaid taxi booking counter, among other places.
“Our personnel blend in with passengers and identify the touts. They are picked up when they try to strike a deal with fliers,” said an officer.
“The plainclothesmen have years of experience working at the airport and a general understanding about how the touts function,” the officer said.
Gaurav Sharma, the police commissioner of Bidhannagar, said the arrests were part of an ongoing drive aimed at freeing the airport of such men who fleece passengers.
“We have made several arrests in the past as well in order to deter them and we are trying to ensure that these men cannot operate (at the airport). We are also running Yatri Sathi booking counters where our personnel help passengers book taxis at fair rates,” said Sharma.
All the men who have been arrested have been charged under several sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 384 (extortion) and 151 (whoever knowingly joins or continues any assembly of five or more persons likely to cause a disturbance of a public place), among others.
The Telegraph recently ran a fortnight-long campaign on various problems faced by passengers at the airport — such as dirty washrooms, car chaos in front of the terminal on the arrival level, harassment by taxi touts, unauthorised parking by VIP cars in front of the terminal and restricted access to Wi-Fi.
Sources in the Bidhannagar commissionerate, however, said the menace of taxi touts is not easy to root out.
“Most accused get bail a day after their arrest and resume their activities at the airport,” the officer said.
Cars with commercial number plates can be spotted in the parking lot opposite the old terminal building. Most such cars belong to taxi touts. The touts or their accomplices catch hold of passengers stepping out of the terminal gates.
“Once a passenger agrees to the fare offered by a tout, he is taken to the parked car or the accomplice drives the car to a spot in front of the terminal,” the officer said.
