05/05/2026
I have been running a car rental and travel company in Guwahati for some time now. From my experience, I have come to realize that the quality of a guest's journey depends almost entirely on the person behind the wheel, the driver.
However, as is prevalent in many other industries or sectors, there is a dearth of shared knowledge and know how on what are the good practices every driver must follow so that the journey feels seamless and stress free for the guests. It is especially so in North East India, where we primarily operate in. We have a lack of any common standard or written guide that any driver, from anywhere in Northeast India, can refer to.
To streamline our own operations, and to make them as standardized as possible, we have brainstormed and taken inputs from guests, friends, our own drivers and partner vendors over the last few months. Over the last few months, my team at Palanquin Ecotales has put together a detailed Standard Operating Procedure covering everything a professional driver needs to know — from how to present themselves before a guest, to how not to drive, to how to present necessary reports to the Operations Team. It is still a work in progress, and we will continue to update it through feedback and relevance.
Starting tomorrow, I shall share these practices here, one post at a time. They are not intended to be our company's advertisement, or spreading of random gyaan on the Internet. We feel that every guest deserves a safe and sound journey, where the travel should be the last think they should take stress about. Also, we want our own driver brothers to inculcate the good habits so that the overall ecosystem of travel in the North East improves.
North East India already prides itself on being a region of the most adorable people, with warm and homely hospitality. We want to extend that to our travel sector as well, where every driver becomes the ambassador of the good image of our beautiful region.
- Queen Bhardwaj
Palanquin Ecotales Private Limited
