Private taxis banned

Press, 25 July 1986, Page 6

Private taxis banned

NZPA-Reuter Moscow Officials in the Caucasus have called off the first Soviet experiment with private taxis, the weekly, "Llteraturnaya Gazeta,” said yesterday in an article that criticised the move as stemming from "yesterday’s psychology.” A report on the experiment in Grozny, a town in the autonomous republic of Checheno-Ingushetla, has said 10 private drivers were being allowed to charge passengers the same rates as State taxis, paying tax on their profits. Newspapers have recently acknowledged that private taxis exist in the Soviet Union by debating the widespread illegal practice of private drivers picking up passengers for money.

“Llteraturnaya Gazeta” said the Grozny private drivers were the country’s first to work legally, and that owing to the general shortage of taxis they would do good business and Improve service to passengers as a result of competition. The report was followed by a passage in bold type saying the Mayor of Grozny had called as the newspaper went to press to say the town had received instructions from the republic’s Finance Minister to halt the experiment. The Minister had cited a Soviet Government resolution issued in 1976 prohibiting the use of private cars for profit. "It’s easier not to take risks, hot to undertake anything, so as not to have to face any punishment Only that is yesterday’s psychology,” the newspaper commented, adding that new times demanded bolder ways of problem-solving. The critique was in tune with a campaign by the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, for greater frankness and innovative thinking as a means of finding solutions to economic and other problems.