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Here’s Why Ola, Uber, Rapido Autos Are Banned In Bangalore
Ola, Uber, and Rapido are great services to have if you are new to a city and do not have a ride of your own. No need to bargain, just open the app, enter the destination, and book your ride. While all these companies have been providing great services, they also come with a demerit in form of 'Surge Pricing', and these companies sometimes make maximum use of the 'Grey Areas' around the regulations.
If you do not know what 'Surge Pricing' is, it is a dynamic pricing method where prices are temporarily increased as a reaction to increased demand. To put it simply, most of you might have noticed prices fluctuating while trying to book cabs during peak hours, that's Surge Pricing.
Coming back to the whole Ola, Uber, and Rapido Auto ban saga in Bangalore, the Karnataka Transport Department had issued a notice to all these above-mentioned service providers to cease operations of their autos in the state.
The notice from the Karnataka Transport Department was issued on October 6, and has demanded these aggregates a total of just 3 days to shut down the operations of autos running in the state.
Speaking about the issuance of the order, the Karnataka State transport commissioner THM Kumar 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 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," the State transport commissioner added.
"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." added the additional commissioner for transport and secretary of the Karnataka State Transport Authority, Mr L Hemanth Kumar.
Also, according to the officials, customers are getting charged far greater fares than set government rates. As mentioned earlier, this is the Surge Pricing we talked about earlier and the Competition Commission of India (CCI) earlier stated that the Indian cab aggregators must develop open regulations about the benefits received by drivers and CAs would receive from surge pricing.
Also, South Bengaluru MP, Mr Tejasvi Surya in a recent Tweet to the Chief Minister and Minister of Transport of Karnataka 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."
Speaking of which, the government of India had previously released a newly revised set of regulations for Taxi aggregators. This regulation recommended surge pricing not to exceed more than 1.5 times the standard cost.
Thoughts About Cab Aggregators Ban On Auto Service In Bangalore
The autorickshaw ban in Bangalore city will affect the commute of many people in the city as it is relatively more affordable than cab service. However, the biggest irk is Surge Pricing, and the government must tighten the regulations around it.
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