Bengaluru: On June 24 the Transport Department held a meeting with members of the minimum cab fare committee. A draft notification has been sent to the State Government for approval.
"It is Rs 12 per km for non AC cab services and Rs 14 per km for AC cab services," said Hemantha Kumar, Additional Commissioner for Transport.
However a member of the fare fixation committee, Radakrishna Holla, who is the President of Bangalore Tourist Taxi Owners’ Association (BTTOA) claimed that he was not aware of the draft notification prepared.
“The point of having the meetings with stakeholders is to discuss and prepare the draft proposal for cab fares. They did not even give it to us before the Saturday meeting," Holla complained.
Stakeholders from Driver and Taxi Associations, Uber and Ola representatives were consulted to set a minimum fare by the Government. Somashekar, another stakeholder from a Driver's organisation said," They took our opinions, but we did not even get to discuss the Rs 12 and Rs 14 per km rates."
When asked about the same, Hemantha Kumara said, “The minimum fare committee was formed only to take inputs from all stakeholders. The Transport Department creates the draft proposal on its own and sends it to the State."
Drivers desert Ola, Uber
Meanwhile, drivers who were unhappy with Ola and Uber have begun to shift to new cab app companies formed after driver protests failed to fetch any results.
Co-founder of Hi Cabs, Joe Matthews, was former VP of Meru Cabs and worked with Ola said, “Our competitors offer discounts during non-peak hours and surge during peak hours. This is their balancing act to make a profit margin. However, we are positioning ourselves as a utility and not luxury service, where customers can rely on fixed rates."
Matthews claimed that 4,700 bookings have been made in the first 2 weeks, with 350 requests per day and 2,500 driver partners.
Co-founder Kiran Gowda said, “Plenty of Ola, Uber drivers have quit to join us. We take no commission from them. For customers, we offer fixed rates with no surge pricing or cancellation charges."
