Ola, Uber, Rapido autos to stop service in Bangalore
In a rather shocking move, the Karnataka Transport Department has done something which the biggest cab aggregators in the country did not expect. Recently, the Department of Transport issued a notice to major ride-hailing firms, Ola, Uber, and Rapido to cease the operations of their autos running in the state. Also, the department has demanded the companies to provide a report on the rising cost of rides. The notice was issued on the 6th of October and the Transport Department gave the aggregates a total of 3 days to shut down the operations of autos.
Speaking on the issuance of this order, the transport commissioner THM Kumar in a notice said, “As per the provisions under On-Demand Transportation Technology Act 2016 aggregators are given license to provide taxi services only, taxi means a motor cab having a seating capacity not exceeding 6 passengers excluding the driver with public service permit on contract” The notice further added, “The companies should submit an explanation about illegal autorickshaw operation, you are advised to submit it within 3 days. If not, legal action will be taken,”
Furthermore, L Hemanth Kumar, additional commissioner for transport and secretary of the State Transport Authority, said, “They are not supposed to run autorickshaws with a cab-aggregator licence. Aggregator rules are only for cabs. We’ve asked them to stop autorickshaw services through the app and submit a report.”
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The agency was informed, according to the officials, that customers are being charged rates that are greater than those set by the government. In the meanwhile, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) back in September also stated that Indian cab aggregators like Ola, Uber, and Meru must develop explicit and open regulations about how much money drivers and CAs would receive from surge pricing.
On the same topic, Tejasvi Surya, MP from Bengaluru South in a recent Tweet to the CM and Minister of Transport of Karanataka said, “Auto rickshaw are backbone of first & last-mile connectivity in Bengaluru. We received many complaints recently regarding tech aggregators charging ₹100 as minimum charge against the fixed limit of ₹30. Requested CM Sri @BSBommai & Sri @sriramulubjp to take necessary action.”
In November 2020, the government of India released a revised set of regulations for taxi aggregators, recommending that surge pricing during peak periods be limited to 1.5 times the standard cost. the government The base fee (for the first two kilometres) was set by the authorities at Rs 30 last year, with an additional Rs 15 for each additional kilometre. But in the previous six to eight months, taxi aggregators increased the basic charge from about Rs 50 to Rs 60 to Rs 100 to Rs 115 due to the rise in fuel costs as well as the general impact of inflation.
As of yet, no response has been reported from the companies and it remains to be seen, what actions will the cab aggregators take in this regard. We will have to wait for the companies to submit the requested report and from there the government will take action accordingly as well.
Recently, the city’s auto unions are reportedly also developing and launching their own mobile application named Namma Yatri. The app will be released on November 1 by the Autorickshaw Drivers Union in collaboration with the Beckn Foundation. While speaking to a media outlet, ARDU president D Rudramurthy said, “Our union plans to launch the Namma Yatri app from November 1. We’ll follow the government-fixed fare and collect an additional ₹10 as pick-up charges. We also plan to launch a flat ₹40 fare in 2km radius between Metro stations and residence/office,”
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