more-in The Madras High Court on Wednesday expressed regret over rail passengers using the Central railway station having been deprived of authorised taxi services for the last 10 months due to an interim order passed by it, restraining Southern Railways from finalising the tender process. Justice S.M. Subramaniam recorded in his final order that an order of status quo granted by the court had affected the public at large. “In the absence of adequate service in Central Station, one can imagine that there would be large-scale of exploitation of the passengers by the autorickshaw drivers and other cab operators,” the judge observed. “Already, there are many allegations against these operators, more specifically in the Chennai Central Railway Station area. Under these circumstances, increasing the cab operations in the railway station is certainly imminent and has to be provided in the interests of the passengers and the public at large,” the judge observed. The observations were made while disposing of two writ petitions filed by Bharathi Cabs and Fast Track, challenging the tender awarded by Southern Railways in favour of ANI Technologies, a Bengaluru-based firm, which operates taxis and autos through its popular mobile phone application named Ola. The tender notification had fixed a reserve price of ?2.17 crore. However, it was finalised in favour of ANI Technologies for a price of ?60 lakh and then enhanced to ?70 lakh. The present writ petitioners had approached the court last year, objecting to the bid amount having been raised through private negotiations and insisted that a fresh tender should be called for. They also obtained an interim order in their favour which led to ANI Technologies not being able to operate its fleet till date. Holding that the case was in favour of the successful bidder, the judge said that nevertheless ANI Technologies could not be permitted to operate taxi services at the Central station for one more year because already 10 months had elapsed since the process began and the tender prices keep increasing year after year. To balance the interests of ANI Technologies as well as that of the general public, the judge ordered that the firm could be permitted to operate at the station for six months from now, on payment of enhanced licence fee of ?40 lakh within two weeks. He also directed the Southern Railways to simultaneously call for tenders for the subsequent period and finalise it before March 23, 2019, so that the next bidder could continue the operations without any break.

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