Was it beige or peach, Mr Minister?

Beige is beige and peach is peach. As far as colours go, there is no scope for confusion. But someone got it wrong: either transport minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil or the regional transport office (RTO). A comedy of errors... er... colours unfolded soon after Patil opened up on the new colour scheme for taxis on Thursday.

“Beige... beige-coloured body with a brown band running through the centre,” Patil said, describing the new look of the taxis conceived by his department, on the sidelines of a meeting with automobile manufacturers. “We have also put two prototypes on display,” he added.

When DNA decided to check things out, there was a surprise in store. The vehicles had turned peach.

Confronted with the obvious question, state transport commissioner Dilip Jadhav seemed to be at a loss of words.

“Well… minister saheb might have said beige, but when we showed him this colour, he was mighty pleased,” he said and kept insisting, “The cars on display are quite close to what the minister had in mind.”  In fact, he later told us, “The colour (of the car is) is something between nut brown and beige.”

“This is typically symbolic of how there is no coordination in the government,” AL Quadros of the taximen’s union told DNA and asked, “Where is the need to change the colour scheme of black-and-yellow at all?” According to him, instead of addressing core issues like permits, which will make life easier for commuters and taxi drivers, “they are keeping themselves busy playing with colours”.

When we tried to get back to the minister on what he felt about being publicly misled by his staff, he remained unavailable for comment.