“Illegal!”
That’s how the Karanatak govt defined the operations of Ola and Uber in its state.
But really?
By now if you don’t know, the Karnataka govt has announced that the auto services of Ola and Uber are considered to be illegal and asked them to stop these services in the span of just 3 days.
The reason posed for this seems simple – auto drivers as per the norms are supposed to charge an amount of ₹30 for the first two kms, followed by ₹15 thereafter. Ola and Uber on the other hand are charging at least ₹100 as their base fare, something which isn’t exactly what the general population is comfortable with.
Not just that but the claim also seems to violate the on-demand transport law of 2016 as the license is being granted to the aggregators to run only taxis, yet they are also running autos in the city.
If not complied, the transport department has also given a letter to the cab aggregators to disable the bookings for autos through the app.
Talking about the auto drivers in Karanataka, they don’t exactly oppose this decision as well.
See the thing is that while the base fare charged by these autos may be high, their deductions are pretty high as well.
On one hand, where an auto driver could make ₹1000 a day, he just makes ₹800 or less through these apps where almost 40% of the amount is being deducted by apps like Ola and Uber.
Sticking to a meter system is upfront and more beneficial for auto drivers since there’s no third party involved to cut their amount.
Moreover, people belonging to some remote areas in Karanataka still resort to traditional methods of booking autos, it doesn’t seem that people in the urban areas would take a lot of time resorting to these methods too.
So what do you think about this story?
Till next time…
