Karnataka Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy welcomes carpooling, says it should not be used for ‘commercial’ purposes

The Federation has dubbed carpooling apps as ‘illegal’, citing the Karnataka Motor Vehicles Act which prohibits commercialisation of white-board vehicles.

On the other hand, the need for carpooling is also rising, given the traffic congestion in Bengaluru, especially on the Outer Ring Road that is used by nearly 10 lakh IT employees.

According to Quick Ride, over 13 lakh users have registered in the last eight years on the platform and the app currently has around 12,000 active daily users. More than 90 per cent of the users are IT professionals, the app’s founder, Nagamalleswara Rao K, said.

Speaking to the Indian Express, Reddy said, “We welcome shared mobility options like carpooling which will help us decongest traffic, reduce pollution, and also be cost-effective for customers. However, we will allow carpooling apps to operate as long as they are not used for commercial purposes. If they want to use it for commercial purposes, they have to switch to yellow boards. They have made their representation detailing the concept of carpooling…”

Meanwhile, Quick Ride, which made a representation to the transport minister, requested the state government to frame guidelines for carpooling in line with the shared mobility policies of the US, Singapore, Australia, and Malaysia, among others.

In a letter addressed to the minister, Nagamalleswara Rao K, who is also the Quick Ride CEO, suggested that the government consider making it mandatory for those offering carpooling services to stick to one route, among other clauses.

Rao said, “In the case of true carpooling, it is nothing but a group of colleagues/neighbours coming together to share/rotate vehicles and share the ride costs. Unlike commercial services, in carpooling, car owners are already traveling on a predefined route, for their own purpose and willing to share their empty seats among the group of members from within the same Company/Techpark/Apartment.”

He added that “the carpooling contribution is measured and points are either exchanged to rotate carpooling activity among the larger group or to use for ride costs. Carpooling is meant to share a private car, rather than encouraging every commuter to take their own vehicles, thus reducing vehicles on roads.”

Recently, the carpooling controversy took a political turn with Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya hitting out at the state government for ‘curtailing’ carpooling.

He posted on X, “Karnataka Govt’s Transport Dept does not seem to understand the difference between carpooling & ride-sharing. When the Govt says, they will permit carpooling in a yellow-board commercial vehicle, but not in a private white-board vehicle, it shows that they haven’t understood the very concept of carpooling. Given the state of the city’s traffic, GoK needs to encourage carpooling & any other form of shared mobility that will reduce the number of private vehicles on the road. Our policy objective must be to move people and not vehicles. But GoK is curtailing carpooling by banning aggregators.”