However, the Nepal Meter Taxi Entrepreneurs´ Association (NMTEA) has termed the protest pointless.[break]
Narayan Shrestha, vice chairman of the NMTEA, said that his organization does not support the demands of any particular political party. He added that the association is in dialogue with the traffic division and the Nepal Department of Quality Control and Metrology to revise the policy to regulate taxi entrepreneurs fairly.
The Swastik Self Employment Taxi Entrepreneurs´ Association staged protest against the Metropolitan Traffic Police Division (MTPD) claiming that the campaign was spreading wrong impression about all taxi entrepreneurs portraying them as frauds.
Jogman Lama, member of the Trade Union affiliated to CPN-Maoist, said that the protest program should focus on safeguarding the rights of taxi drivers who are being generalized as frauds.
The traffic police launched the monitoring of taxis from January 13 following continuous complaints from passengers about suffering at the hands of cab drivers in the capital. Most complaints lodged with the traffic police include hefty fares charged by the taxi drivers.
The MTPD campaign against the taxi drivers found that many taxi drivers were indeed manipulating their meters and has penalized around 1000 wrongdoers. Similarly, the traffic division has also started punching holes in the driving license of drivers found guilty, according to the MTPD spokesperson Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Pawan Giri.
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