Complaints by auto drivers, people forced Karnataka govt impose ban on Ola?

ola-cab-logo via Commons

The Karnataka government's decision to ban Ola for six months was the result of repeated complaints by auto drivers and the public about Ola using its existing app to ply bike taxis in the city.

State Transport Commissioner V.P. Ikkeri told THE WEEK that they had issued Ola license to run only cabs through their app, but the company violated the norms and added bike taxis to the app. “They were regularly doing for it for many days and were running around 300 bikes through the app. After complaints from auto drivers and the public, we did a thorough probe and found that the cab aggregator was indeed plying bike taxis through it. Initially we seized around 250 bikes and now we have temporarily suspended their permit,” Ikkeri said.

He further said Ola accepted that they had been violating the norms. “We are waiting for a reply from Ola on the suspension order. If we get a proper reply from them, we will take a decision on it later. Though bike taxis have been completely stopped, Ola cabs are still running and we have given them a week's time to surrender their permit. Till then, Ola cabs will run on and off across the state as we cannot stop them immediately and they have to suspend cab operations in the state on their app in a week's time.”

The transport commissioner explained that in case the permit is not surrendered in a week's time, they will have no choice but to physically seize the vehicles. However, many experts feel that implementing the suspension order may not be very easy for the state authorities as physically seizing the vehicles and ensuring that the cabs are off their app is not an easy task.

It is also a known fact that a majority of the Ola cab drivers hail from the rural areas of Karnataka and many of them depend on cabs they drive for their livelihood. Of late, many cab drivers have complained about ill treatment by the cab aggregators. The complaints include the companies refusing to offer incentives and penalising of cab drivers for failing to meet the daily target.

In 2017, before the last assembly polls the JD(S) had introduced an app-based cab service 'Namma TYGR' in Bengaluru, but it never really took off. The aim was to attract the rural youth or cab drivers, who used to complain that Ola and Uber packages were not lucrative enough.

Meanwhile, some experts, on condition of anonymity said the government is trying to extract money from Ola as it is election season.

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