Taxis: India
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Women-driven taxis
Centre tells states: Provide fee relief
The Times of India, Jun 04 2016
Dipak Dash
Provide fee relief to women-driven taxis, Centre tells states
Centre wants states to “brand“ women-driven taxis exclusively and to exempt them from paying permit fees. This is aimed to encourage more such womendriven taxis, which is gaining currency across the country .
The road transport ministry has suggested this in the proposed taxi permit scheme for both city taxis and All India Tourist Permit (AITP) cabs. The policy will cover taxi aggregators and there will be a cap on fare as earlier reported by TOI.
It suggests while capping of fares will cover vehicles falling under two categories airconditioned micro and mini city taxis air-conditioned midi and mega taxis such as Honda City , Toyota Altis, Dzire and other top end cars that operate with permits to ply within the city will be out of this regime. “The fare of such taxis should be market driven,“ said a ministry official.
Considering that a robust taxi framework can supplement good public transport system in cities, the proposed policy also suggests states to create special taxi parking zones by earmarking at least 20% space for such vehicles free of cost.
The AITP vehicles would be allowed only for hiring on hourly basis (minimum four hours) or daily basis or for long-term basis such as for call centres. Both city taxi and AITP vehicle must have CCTV cameras for passenger safety , the Centre has suggested. Meanwhile, to increase the availability of public transport in rural areas as well, the road transport ministry will liberalise the permit regime and will come out with norms to allow vehicles including motorcycle taxis, e-rickshaws and jugaads for ferrying passengers.
“The focus is to improve all forms of public transports both in urban and rural areas,“ said a government official.
App-based services
HC ends surge pricing: 2016
The Times of India, Aug 12 2016
Abhinav Garg
Surge pricing by cab aggregators Ola and Uber must end by August 22, 2016, the Delhi high court ruled on Thursday , giving the app-based services a 10-day deadline to streamline their systems and fall in line with the order. Justice Manmohan said that the cab aggregators had to abide by the fare cap fixed by the Delhi transport department.
The high court relented to a 10-day extension rather than enforce its order with immediate effect after Uber sought time to tweak its software to bring it in line with the government-mandated rates. Ola assured the high court that it had stopped charging passengers more than the notified rates and had given an undertaking to this effect in court. Ola told the HC, through advocates Vijay Sondhi and Gurpreet Singh Kahlon, that it would abide by the affidavit filed earlier by it.
The court acknowledged the contribution of taxi aggregators in reducing pressure on public transport and also in providing more options to the commuter, but underlined the need for “a uniform policy“ to be devised by the government as a regulator. Appearing for the Centre, standing counsel Manish Mohan told the court that for framing a comprehensive regulation at pan India level, the transport ministry set up the panel on May 25 to address licence issues of taxis and aggregators.
HC then asked the special committee to keep in mind a draft policy being prepared by the Delhi government for regulating aggregators, give a proper hearing to all stakeholders and file a final report in three months. It further asked it to include one senior official each from the information technology ministry , Central Pollution Control Board and Delhi Traffic Police to get a better overview, and recommended that the panel seek help from a transport expert in Niti Aayog.
Justice Manmohan advised the Delhi transport department, the Union transport ministry and Delhi Police to work together to ensure “seamless flow of data“ regarding people applying for licence or permit to drive taxis. The court was also of the view that incidents of crimes against women in cabs occurred because police were handicapped due to lack of such data with the taxi operators and aggregators. There is no way to know if the accused cab driver in such cases “had a criminal past“.
Pointing out that entire NCR should be treated as one zone, the court said treating Delhi as a separate entity will be counter-productive since commuters and cab firms were also based in neighbouring ci ties of UP and Haryana and often ran between cities.
As per the rates prescribed by the transport department, the special fare of Radio Taxi cabs (distinguished by an LCD board on roof top displaying `Radio Taxi') is Rs 23 per km.Additional night charge (25% of the fare) is applicable between 11pm and 5am. Regular fares of the app-based taxi service are much lower than this.
Diesel taxis
Registration increases sharply 2014-16
The Times of India, May 05 2016
Jayashree Nandi In 2014-15, more than 11,000 diesel taxis were registered in Delhi alone. EPCA on Wednesday held a meeting with various taxi operators, including those holding an all-India tourist permit (AITP) and aggregators, in order to prepare a strategy on how diesel taxis on AITP could be phased out.
Officials from both central and state governments heard taxi operators and studied their permit conditions closely. EPCA hasn't arrived at any decision yet but it is likely to present their phase-out plan to the apex court on Friday . This is the first meeting EPCA had with taxi operators after SC recently ordered only CNG cabs would be allowed to run in the city from May 1onwards.
SC had given a two-day deadline to the AAP government for filing a detailed plan on phasing out of diesel cabs. “The spurt in diesel taxi registrations is because aggregators organised soft loans for drivers to buy vehicles and gave them some money upfront. Since they wanted to do inter-city services, these diesel taxis were registered under AITP,“ said one of the experts who attended the EPCA meeting.
EPCA heard the concerns raised by taxi operators and possible solutions suggested by them.There was quite a bit of altercation between AITP operators and aggregators--Ola and Uber. Many demanded that their taxis be allowed to run for eight-nine years.Some suggested that SC be requested to pass an order, which would ensure that aggregators compensate their drivers who were pushed to buy diesel taxis.
Another suggestion was that an affidavit be taken from AITP taxis that they would do only inter-city services. Some operators even tried to convince EPCA members that the order was only meant for taxis running on city permits but not on national permits.But EPCA members reminded them that as early as 1998, the courts ordered that only CNG taxis would be registered in Delhi.
