Cab drivers in Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra working with Ola, Uber, and other aggregators have threatened to storm the Azad Maidan on September 30, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in the city, to press for their various demands. The demands include fare parity, a cap on commissions, faster implementation of the Maharashtra Aggregator Policy, and a ban on bike taxis.
A few protesters, who reached the Azad Maidan on Thursday, said they will take a vow not to vote for the Mahayuti government if the demands are not fulfilled, even as the transport department issued an ultimatum to cab aggregators to enforce the discussed fare parity rates by Thursday (September 18).
“We will come with our families from across the state and protest at Azad Maidan in Mumbai. Despite repeated written and verbal assurances to the state’s joint transport commissioner to follow the government rates, cab aggregator companies have not implemented any rates on their mobile application to date,” Maharashtra Kamgar Sabha president Keshav Nana Kshirsagar, who is spearheading the agitation, told mid-day.
The state transport department had held a meeting with aggregators and drivers in July, during which it presented the companies with the issues raised by the drivers. In the meeting, the aggregators agreed to address the issue, including the implementation of government rates and drivers getting 80 per cent of the fare revenue.
Following their meeting, an ultimatum was issued by the transport department to Ola, Uber, and other cab aggregators to enforce agreed-upon fare parity rates by the deadline, which ended Thursday (September 18).
“The transport department had given us assurance on September 16, and the regulations were issued by the government officials many times before that. But companies have not been yielding to the demands. We had a meeting of cab, rickshaw, and taxi drivers working with aggregator companies at Azad Maidan this morning, and it was decided that if we do not get our due rates before September 30 and the closure of bike taxi services, we will storm Azad Maidan and take an oath to vote against the Mahayuti alliance,” he added.
