Bengal government rewards honest taxi driver

Kolkata, Feb 19 (UNI) Recognising his honesty, the West Bengal government today honoured a city taxi driver with a cash award of Rs 10,000 and urged others to emulate his example.

Handing over a cheque (of that amount) to a totally non-descriptive looking 42-year-old Prodyot Paul- the honest cabbie driver- at a simple function in his Writers Buildings chamber, state Transport minister Subhas Chakraborty informed that Mr Paul had willingly returned Rs 7 lakh to its rightful owners, who had left the currencies in a bag in his taxi while travelling in the city on March 20 last year.

Mr Paul after dropping a passenger near the Great Eastern Hotel at around 1200 hours on that day found a bag lying on the floor of his taxi after about an hour. In order to trace the identity of its owner he opened the bag and to his surprise found that it contained several gold ornaments and bundles of cash inside.

But without a second thought Mr Paul first rushed back to the hotel and tried to identify the person he had dropped. But despite waiting for nearly an hour when he could not find him, he went to the New Market Police station and deposited the bag to the Officer-in-Charge after describing him the whole incident.

Later it was estimated that the cash and jewellery in the bag was valued at more than Rs 7 lakh which was returned to its owner the next day after proper verification, Mr Chakraborty informed.

Highly impressed by his act of honesty the New Market police recomended his case to the state transport department for a suitable reward.

Speaking to reporters about his rarest of the rare act, Mr Paul refused to claim that he had done something extraordinary." I only tried to implement the basic like - honesty is the best policy - which I learnt in my childhood", he emphasied.

UNI