``We want to first assess the exact number of taxis Mumbai has and the number it actually needs,'' Lal said.

There are presently roughly 55,000 taxis in the city, which transport experts believe is 20,000 over the requirement. Mumbai Taxi Union general secretary AL Quadros agreed that the city required only about 35,000 taxis. ``But now it is too late to do anything, what will happen to the 20,000 cabbies?'' he asked.

As a remedy, Quadros suggested that taxis be allowed to ply outside the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. ``At least 10,000 taxis will go out of the city each day and this will reduce both traffic congestion and pollution,'' he said, adding that this had evenbeen suggested by the Taxi Trade Enquiry Committee chaired by the transport secretary in 1996.

The state government had first frozen the issual of fresh taxi permits when their numbers reached 35,000 in 1983. Then in 1994, the then transport minister Ramdas Athavale threw open the issual of fresh permits, a direct result of which was the near doubling of the city's taxi population. ``This happened despite our demand that only 8000 new permits be issued,'' Quadros said. Finally in November 1997 the government froze all new permits.

Meanwhile, senior transport department officials, Lal has sent letters to the Chairperson of the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) Sharvaree Gokhale asking for the cancellation of permits of nearly 500 of the taxis older than 25 years.