Comments
More trouble seems to be brewing for taxi aggregator Uber in India. The Gurugram regional transport department has served a notice, the second in a week, to the Indian arm of the San Francisco-based firm for plying two-wheeler/bike taxis with white number plates, which violates the Motor Vehicles Act.
The notices were sent to Uber India head Amit Jain, Delhi head Gagan Bhatia and founder Travis Kalanick. Uber declined to respond to a BusinessLine query on this.
Meanwhile, Bhushan Kumar, Assistant Secretary at Gurugram’s Regional Transport Authority, said, “It is illegal to run any vehicle with a white number plate on a commercial basis. We sent them a second notice on Monday; if they don’t respond in two days, we will start legal proceedings.”
Uber, which launched its bike taxis in Bengaluru and Gurugram simultaneously in March to take on rival Ola, suspended its two-wheeler operations in Bengaluru after the Karnataka government came down on both Ola and Uber. However, both are plying in Gurugram at the moment.
“The regional transport department has seized about 50 bikes, but 80 are still plying,” said a source.
An Ola spokesperson said the company is compliant with all the rules and doesn’t allow any white number-plated bike to list on its platform.
According to sources, Uber is preparing to aggregate cabs with white number plates in Delhi-NCR –– as it does in San Francisco, where the laws allow it. However, in India it is illegal.
BusinessLine has a copy of the Terms and Conditions document that Uber asks its partners (bike owners) to sign. The document states categorically that the two-wheeler ride is completely private; Uber is not a party to it and has no responsibility in case of any untoward incident.
Uber determines the fare and allows passengers to pay cash or through the Paytm wallet; the entire fare goes to the driver. Uber doesn’t charge drivers, who typically hail from poor socio-economic backgrounds. Instead, sources say, it gives bike owners ₹50-100 as incentive per ride, evidently to disrupt the business of other players.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.