‘Our services won’t be hit’: Uber reacts to indefinite strike call by cab drivers in Pune

Upon receiving the official statement from Uber-India opposing the strike planned next week, the driver unions have decided to keep off from work in protest against Uber and Ola not implementing the revised taxi fare that was approved by Pune RTO in January.

Over a month has passed since Pune RTO announced the revised AC taxi fares based on the Khatua Committee’s recommendations. However, they were not followed by aggregator companies. The proposal was approved in last year’s December meeting of the Regional Transport Authorities (RTA), chaired by the then Collector Rajesh Deshmukh.

After the meeting, the RTO announced hiked taxi fares for cabs operating under its jurisdiction on January 3. The drivers and other stakeholders in the city gave the cab companies one month to follow the new rules and warned them about it.

Taxi driver unions had repeatedly protested to increase the rates of air-conditioned (AC) taxis, after which the fare was decided at Rs 31 for the first 1.5 km for non-air-conditioned taxis and Rs 21 for every subsequent kilometre. As for AC taxis (cool cabs), the fare was announced as Rs 37 for the first 1.5 km and Rs 25 for each subsequent kilometre.

“We had a meeting with both the companies in the presence of the transport authorities. After the collector’s decision, we expressed satisfaction with the new fares set by the authorities. We gave the companies the time to implement the new fares. Yet, they have not implemented them. So we have decided to go with a one-day demonstration next week. Along with that we have decided to suspend our services until new fares are implemented,” said Keshav Kshirsagar, spokesperson of Indian Gig Workers Forum (IGF).

Taxi drivers alleged that Ola and Uber are operating without holding a licence but no action was being taken against them.

Sanjeev Bhor, Pune Regional Transport Officer, said that in a meeting convened on Tuesday they have asked the companies to follow the revised fare. “Both the companies sought a clarification on the types of cabs that would fall under the revised fare. So we told them that the finalised rates are applicable for the basic vehicles such as hatchback and not sedan,” he said.

He said that currently Maharashtra does not have a state aggregator policy and in such conditions everyone should follow the central aggregator policy.

The central policy states in its rule no 13(3) that the companies can charge 50 per cent below in off-peak hours and 50 per cent above in peak hours of the base rate.