Karnataka cab drivers unhappy with new fare notification

The Karnataka government’s notification of minimum and maximum fare bands for taxis operated by aggregators such as Ola and Uber under the Karnataka on Demand Transportation Technology Aggregator Rules 2016 has not gone down well with the drivers.

“We drivers have not been consulted, despite repeated assurance from the government that they would involve us in fixing the new fare structure. We will ask the government to revoke the new fare notification, failing which we will either call for a bandh or stage a protest,” Tanveer Pasha, President, Karnataka Taxi Owners’ Federation told BusinessLine , who recently resigned as President of Ola Uber TaxiForSure Drivers and Owners Association, which he had founded.

Explaining that the new fares will only benefit the aggregators, who can now play around with dynamic pricing up to the maximum price band all through the day, he said, “The government has done this just a few months before the elections to get on the good books of drivers and cab aggregators, while drivers do not stand to gain at all. Majority of the cabs are priced above ₹5 lakh today. Then why fix a price band for such cars at all?”

Unlike the earlier practice of fixing the fare bands based on air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned taxis, the new fares are based on the cost of the cars which are classified as A, B,C, D models with A being the highest cost and D the lowest. Under the new fare structure, which comes into effect immediately, users will be charged a minimum fare of ₹44 for the first 4 km for smaller taxis that cost up to ₹5 lakh. The per km minimum fare has been fixed at ₹11 and maximum fare at ₹22.

At the upper end, users will be charged a minimum fare of ₹80 for the first 4 km for larger cars that cost above ₹16 lakh and thereafter a minimum fare of ₹20 and maximum fare of ₹45 per km.

According to Transport Commissioner B Dayananda, the new fare structure was arrived at very scientifically after studying in great detail the aggregator model from the database provided by the cab aggregators and by involving all the stakeholders, including drivers and commuters.

“We did this by calculating various expenses incurred by the driver, including the EMI he pays, fuel cost, repairs and maintenance costs etc and arrived at a minimum operating cost which worked out to ₹19-20 for cars up to ₹5 lakh, which the driver needs to recover. The majority of cabs plying are within ₹5 lakh” he said.

Asked when cab aggregators will adopt new fares, the Commissioner said, “New fares come into force today. However, we have to give them some time to adjust their software.”

There was mixed response from cab aggregators on the new fares. An Ola spokesperson told BusinessLine that they are evaluating the impact of the new fare structure.

Uber’s GM – South Christian Reese said in a statement that he welcomed the efforts of the State government to revise the existing fare structure, keeping in mind the interests of hundreds of thousands of driver partners.

While users of Ola and Uber that BusinessLine spoke to were happy about the move to remove the extra fare that was being charged based on the time taken to complete a trip.

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