Taxi drivers serving KIA keep off roads in Bengaluru following colleague's suicide
Bengaluru, Mar 31: Taxi drivers serving the city's Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) stayed off the roads on Wednesday after a colleague who had allegedly set himself ablaze died last night.
Pratap, 34, from Ramanagara, working with the Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation's airport taxi service, had allegedly set himself ablaze inside his car near the pick-up area of the airport on Tuesday, depressed over his financial troubles, police sources said.
They were trying to ascertain the exact cause,the sources added.
Aircraft rescue and fire-fighting team had rescued him and he was rushed to hospital, but he succumbed to injuries at midnight, they said.
According to airport taxi drivers, Pratap took the extreme step due to poor financial condition, poor business and inability to pay EMIs.
They said most taxi drivers, including those linked to Ola, Uber, KSDTC and other airport taxi services have stayed off the roads as a mark of protest following his death, as many of them are going through similar financial problems.
KIA, in a passenger advisory, said taxi services at the airport have been impacted and passengers are requested to use Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation buses to travel to or from the airport or make their own travel arrangements.
BMTC has deployed additional buses on the airport route to help passengers, official sources said.
Alleging that price war in the cab industry and government's 'apathy' has led to Pratap's death, former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy,in a series of tweets, said KSDTC was following taxi fare of Rs 24 per km fixed by the government.
Taxi aggregators, however, were offering fares of Rs 9 per km to attract passengers, resulting in business loss for KSDTC drivers, he added.
He urged the state government to intervene and come to the rescue of the taxi drivers.
ಕೆಎಸ್ಟಿಡಿಸಿ ಕ್ಯಾಬ್ಗಳು ದರ ನಿಯಮ ಪಾಲಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದರೆ, ಖಾಸಗಿ ಕ್ಯಾಬ್ಗಳು ₹9ಕ್ಕೆ ಗ್ರಾಹಕರನ್ನು ಸೆಳೆಯುತ್ತಿವೆ. ಹೀಗಾಗಿ ಕೆಎಸ್ಟಿಡಿಸಿ ಕ್ಯಾಬ್ಗಳಿಗೆ ಗ್ರಾಹಕರೇ ಇಲ್ಲದಂತಾಗಿದೆ. ಚಾಲಕರು ಸಮಸ್ಯೆಗೆ ಸಿಲುಕಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಇದರ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ವಿಮಾನ ನಿಲ್ದಾಣದ ಪಾರ್ಕಿಂಗ್ನಲ್ಲೂ ನಡೆಯುತ್ತಿರುವ ರಾಜಕೀಯ ಚಾಲಕರ ಕೊರಳು ಹಿಂಡುತ್ತಿದೆ.
— H D Kumaraswamy (@hd_kumaraswamy) March 31, 2021
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
