Hyderabad: The spirit of Hyderabad came to the fore with thousands of taxis going off the roads, with commuters pooling cars, taking autorickshaws and even taking buses and MMTS trains.
The Telangana Cab Drivers and Owners’ Association continued its protests at nearly 1,500 locations on the third day on Monday and blocked other cabs which were running. Association sources said they had stopped about 1,000 cabs, most of them in the IT corridor. In many cases, techies were forced to get down mid-journey.
These techies took to the social media to inform their colleagues of the lack of taxis. Mr Sundeep Kumar Makthala from the Telangana IT Association said most techies had shared transport to come to work.
“The fares have been jacked up. Instead of Rs 200 for a trip from Gachibowli to Kukatpally, I paid Rs 670 on Monday,” he said. Mr P.V. Raja Rao, a techie from Neredmet, said their cab was halted at Begumpet at about noon, while he had to report to work at 2 pm. “All 10 of us took buses to reach Cyber Towers,” he said.
A few autorickshaw associations increased services at hospitals, railway stations and bus stations but drivers charged double the meter fare. Association president V. Shiva said they would continue the strike till the Ola and Uber managements agree to their demands.
“We will end the strike on January 4 but we will continue our protest in a peace way. We will hold relay hunger strikes and indefinite hunger strikes,” he said.
