What a Kerala taxi actually costs, line by line

Most people booking a car in Kerala are quoted one number and have no idea what is in it. That is exactly how a quote grows by two thousand rupees on the last day.

Here is the whole structure. It is the same arithmetic we use to write your quote, and it is not complicated.

The five things in every fare

1. Distance × rate per kilometre

The base. Every vehicle has a published per-kilometre rate — ours run from ₹15 for a Swift Dzire up to ₹42 for a 26-seat coach.

What the rate has to cover: diesel, tyres, servicing, insurance, the permit, depreciation on the vehicle, and the driver’s earning.

Diesel alone is only part of it. A Dzire doing 20 km/l at ₹96.50 a litre burns about ₹4.83 per kilometre. We charge ₹15. The gap is not profit — it is the other six things on that list, and the driver’s living.

We publish both numbers on our fleet page precisely so you can see the margin instead of guessing at it. A rate that looks suspiciously low is usually a rate that will be topped up later.

2. Driver allowance — bata

₹500 per calendar day for most vehicles, ₹700 for the 17-seater and above.

This is the driver’s food and where he sleeps. On a five-day circuit he is away from home for five days and he has to eat.

Two things to know:

• It is per calendar day the car is held, not per 24 hours. A 4-night trip is 5 days. That is standard across Kerala and it is not an operator inventing a day.
• It should be its own line on the invoice. Any quote without a visible bata line has either buried it in the per-km rate or is going to ask for it in cash at the end. The second is common.

3. Tolls and parking

Kerala has few tolls; the NH 66 corridor south and the routes into Tamil Nadu have more.

The right way to handle this: estimated up front, billed at actuals with receipts. If the estimate was ₹450 and the real total was ₹380, you pay ₹380.

A quote with no toll line means either they are absorbed into a padded rate, or you will be handed a number at the end that you cannot check.

4. Night running

A single charge — ours is ₹300 — for driving between 10pm and 6am.

Charged once for the trip, not per night and not per hour. A 2am airport pickup counts. Arriving at your hotel at 10:30pm does not.

Anyone charging this per night on a five-day trip is charging you five times for one thing.

5. GST

5% on the whole subtotal for a cab with driver. It should be shown separately.

If a quote has no GST line, ask whether you are getting an invoice at all. For corporate travel where you need the input credit, this matters.

A real example

Our Munnar 2N/3D circuit, in a Dzire, 380 km:

Line	Amount
Distance — 380 km × ₹15	₹5,700
Driver allowance — 3 days × ₹500	₹1,500
Tolls and parking	₹300
Subtotal	₹7,500
GST @ 5%	₹375
Total	₹7,875

That is the whole thing. Five lines. Nothing else appears.

Why airport drops look expensive

This one causes more arguments than everything else combined.

A flat airport drop to Fort Kochi is 40 km of driving for you. It is 80 km for the car, because it comes back empty. The driver does not find a return fare waiting at your hotel.

So flat airport rates are built on the round trip, not your one-way distance. Read against 40 km they look steep. Read against 80 km plus the driver’s slot, they are not.

We charge your distance plus about 75% of the empty return on longer routes — not the full return, because that would be honest and uncompetitive at the same time.

Five ways a quote grows later

Watch for these:

1. No bata line. It is coming, in cash, on the last day.
2. “Tolls extra.” Fine if estimated. Not fine if unquantified.
3. Night charge per night. Should be once.
4. Inter-state permit collected at the border. It should be arranged in advance and inside the total. Paying at the checkpost usually means paying twice.
5. A rate below the fuel cost of the vehicle. Someone is going to make that money back somewhere.

What to ask for

Before you agree to anything, ask for the quote as five lines: distance, driver allowance, tolls, night charge if any, GST.

An operator who can produce that in thirty seconds is an operator whose price will not move. One who cannot is one whose price will.

You are entitled to a GST invoice with the vehicle registration and the driver’s name on it. Ask for it at the start of the trip rather than the end — it is easier for everyone, and it tells you immediately what kind of operator you have.