``The first taxis will start coming in for fitness tests by next week,'' deputy transport commissioner (enforcement) S D Sahasrabudhe told Express Newsline. The three RTOs will recall taxis over 15 years old, at the rate of 400 notices a day, he said.

These taxis will be subject to an intensive total fitness test to determine their roadworthiness, Sahasrabudhe said. The registration of taxis found unfit will be suspended for three months, during which the vehicle will have to go off the road and rectify its defects.

The Mumbai Taximen's Association has already threatened to go on an indefinite strike after Diwali if the motor vehicles department did not cease targetting taxis.

Meanwhile, in the second phase of its anti-pollution drive targetting two wheelers, private motor carsand autos, the RTO has suspended registration of over 433 such vehicles since last Friday. These include 236 trucks, 96 private motor cars, 44 taxis, 30 autos, 12 two wheelers and 15 various other vehicles.

At the Tardeo transport office, Assistant RTO Deepak Patil asks a taxi driver to step outside his car and leave his engine running. This particular taxi is at the head of a long queue of diesel taxis seized by RTO inspectors during their drive. A long pipe trails from the exhaust of this taxi to a PUC machine. Patil gently flattens the accelerator pedal, the exhaust erupts in a cloud of thick black smoke. The red light of the machine flickers to 9, which stands for 90 Hartridges (the unit to measure smoke). The permissible limit is 65. This taxi and its sullen driver joins a group of others who've failed the test. ``Why don't the RTOs just give us Rs two lakh each, we'll go out and buy new cars,'' grumbles one cabbie, whose vehicle registration has been suspended.