At a meeting convened today union leaders from all over the state expressed solidarity with the taxi and autorickshaw drivers and decided that if the government cancelled the registration of the 2,000 taxis which have been issued notices for pollution check, they will strike again.

Autorickshawmen's Union leader Shankar Salvi, general secretary of the Mumbai Taximen's Union A L Quadros, president of the Bombay Taxi Association Mohinder Singh, Sharad Rao, Dr Baba Adhav from Pune and other leaders from Aurangabad, Kalyan, Sholapur and Thane attended the meeting.

On October 27, the one-and-a half-day taxi strike was called off after Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh announced the suspension of theTransport Commissioner's drive calling taxis for fitness tests. Though fresh notices are not being issued to taxis, the old notices to 2,000 of them have not been withdrawn. The unions fear that once the new Transport Minister takes over, the registration of the vehicles will be cancelled. Quadros said that if such a step was taken, taxis would go on strike again and this time around they would be joined by autorickshaws too.

Quadros added that if harassment by the authorities and NGOs continued, they would not allow any private vehicle on the road from the first week of January 2000. ``We will also not allow registration of private vehicles at the RTO if this attitude continues. Almost 300-400 private vehicles are registered everyday in the city. There are no new registrations of taxis and autos. Why this discrimination? Why is the government not clamping down on private vehicles if it is really serious about bringing down the number of vehicles in the city?'' he asked.

He lashed out at NGOs termingthem ``anti-workers and publicity-hungry''. ``Who are these NGOs? They are rich people who spend nine months in London and three months in Mumbai. Do they undertand the city's problems?'' he remarked, adding that the unions were dismayed at the ``bureaucratic'' attitude of Transport V M Lal. Says Quadros, ``He did not even consult the union before initiating a drive against us. When we held a meeting on October 22 and invited him, he refused to attend. If he wants to reduce pollution, why is he targetting only us? Aren't other vehicles as guilty?''

Quadros said that a Taxi Trade Enquiry Committee, instituted in 1996 by the government had said in its report that to bring down the number of taxis in Mumbai, a part of them should be allowed to ply outside the city's limits.

``The government has not acted on this. At present there are 55,000 taxis in the city and more than 10,000 of us are willing to ply our vehicles outside the Mumbai Metropolitan region -- in places like Karjat.