By Salman Siddiqui/Staff Reporter
Some illegal private taxi drivers are now mulling the option of joining the legitimate limousine services operating in the city, Gulf Times has learnt.
Chaudhry (name changed), who for years has been using his own private vehicle as an illegal taxi in the city, says he is getting tired of operating under the shadows.
“Everyday when I take my car out for work, I’m terrified that the police will catch me. Sometimes even in my sleep, I dream that I’ve been caught in a raid and thrown into a jail, awaiting deportation,” he says.
He said that he was ready to quit his illegal work in Qatar as soon as he found something that would pay him at least the same amount of money that he got through his private taxi work.
There are many drivers like Chaudhry who are similarly on the lookout for a way out. One extremely paranoid Bangladeshi driver, who has been operating his illegal taxi for 20 years by his own admission, says that recently drivers like him were approached by a limousine company to work for them legally.
According to the arrangement proposed to them, the drivers will have to buy or lease a new car on their own; maintain the car on their expenses and pay QR300 per month to the company as a licence fee for using its brand name on their vehicle.
“This way, the company gets to increase the size of its fleet without having to buy a car at their expense, while we drivers get peace of mind by not getting caught by the police,” a Bangladeshi driver said.
At the moment, there are many limousine services operating in the city. All of them offer two types of limousines, one is the ‘Standard Service’, which comprises mostly of Japanese mid-range cars that target middle-class customers; the other is the VIP service that offers customers high-end luxury cars.
The illegal taxi operators say that the limousine service wants them to join their Standard service.
One of the main problem in this arrangement, however, for the private drivers is to find the money to buy a brand new car. “Usually, we can get a loan of around QR30,000 from within our community to buy a second hand car which we pay off through our illegal taxi work. New cars, however, will cost more than twice that amount and arranging, for example, QR70,000 will be difficult and take us longer to pay back the loan,” Chaudhry said.
Moreover, since drivers like Chaudhry are in Qatar on labour visas, they can’t apply for a loan from a bank.
However, despite these impediments, the illegal taxi drivers say that if somehow they are able to find the money, they would like to take up the limousine offer.
The other option for these drivers is to take a new car on lease from the company itself and pay it money as rent on a daily basis.
This option, however, does not attract any of the illegal taxi drivers, who say they would rather earn more by driving their own cars than go for such an option. “Earning through rental cars does not leave one with enough money at the end of the day and the driver too is left stressed out with the work load, so this option doesn’t work for any of us,” a driver said.
