Shillong, Sept 10: The Khun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement (KHNAM) has joined the movement seeking a ban on tourist cabs from outside the state ferrying tourists to various destinations in the state.
In a letter to the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC), the party sought the Council’s intervention in barring all outside cabs from visiting tourist destinations within its jurisdiction.
A section of the cabbies in Meghalaya have been raising the demand expressing their concern over outside cabs taking away their business on a large scale.
Referring to United Khasi-Jaintia Hills District (Trading by Non-Tribal) Regulation 1954, the KHNAM letter said para 3 reads that “no person other than a tribal resident of a district shall carry out a wholesale or retail trade or business within the Khasi Hills Autonomous District except under a license issued by the KHADC”.
“The very objective of the regulation is to ensure that trade or business of the local tribes is protected at all times,” said the letter issued by KHNAM working president Thomas Passah.
Passah said it has been noted that tourist taxis from outside the state, especially from Assam, are openly carrying out tourist business in all the tourist sites that fall under the jurisdiction of the KHADC without a trade license for the past many years.
Trade license may not be required if they (outside cabs) restrict themselves to plying passengers from one state to another state through designated pickup and drop points, but they venture into the most remote tourist destinations, which amounts to doing business within the Council territory, he stated.
