Night curfew: Cab drivers to approach CM Cops

Nischith N | NT

Bengaluru: The Karnataka Government has decided to impose a night curfew (10 pm to 5 am) starting from Tuesday has caught ride hailing cabs like Uber and Ola off guard.

Ola and Uber drivers are planning to approach the Chief Minister’s office against the night curfew. They are opposing the guidelines restricting the movement of taxis and auto-rickshaws during the peak season of New Year Celebrations.

“Cab services in metro cities have been among the hardest hit during the Covid-19 pandemic. With continuous lockdowns, trips have been reduced but expenses like vehicle EMIs and maintenance costs remain. Cab drivers in Bengaluru at one time had enough revenue to pay their expenses and business was thriving. Now the government is imposing a curfew during the peak season. Our driver community has been badly hit ever since the pandemic began,” says Tanveer Pasha, head of the Ola, TaxiForSure and Uber Drivers & Owners Association.

He said with most tech companies imposing workfrom- home and cutting down on business travel, the taxi business has dwindled. “Our drivers see some business only between 8 pm and 2 am. During New Year’s Eve, each car driver will end up with a minimum of Rs 6,000 which will help him to pay his EMIs. But with the new restrictions this is highly impossible. All these government services like Metro and BMTC services are running fully-packed, but they have a problem when a cab driver runs with one or two passengers. So we all are planning to approach the Chief Minister office,” Pasha added.

“It’s not about profits or losses at the moment, the aggregators will be looking at resuming services but we are stuck in the middle. Aggregators are thinking about their business, the government is safeguarding their public transport by running fully packed and we drivers are left nowhere. So it is better for the government to think about us and revise the New Year restrictions,” said Manju, a cab driver.

According to reports, Bengaluru city had 60,000 plus taxis and over 12,000 airport taxis. Now the number has dwindled to around 30,000 taxis across the city. Many drivers either sold their vehicles or they were seized by financiers.

During pre-Covid times, the drivers attached to app based aggregators used to earn an average of around Rs 15,000 a month, but now it has come down to Rs 8,000.

Hoteliers too upset

Bengaluru Hotel Association President P.C. Rao remarked there are different sets of rules for different operators. He told News Trail, “Theatres and buses have been given 100 per cent seating capacity, whereas the hotels are restricted to allow only 50 per cent customer seating. Customers spend just a couple of minutes until they have their meal here… I don’t think the New Year Celebrations will yield anything this time. I doubt whether it is going to be celebrated. The actual celebrations begin only after 10pm. The revenue generated during the season amounts up to Rs 500 crore from across the city. We had already prepared for the celebration and taken bookings through online portals. Suddenly the government has announced restrictions. This is unjust and will result in the loss again. I pray the state government will consider our requests and rethink its decision.”