Cab-sharing: Will another strike help the Ola, Uber drivers anyway?

This is for the second time within a span of a month that Ola and Uber cab drivers have gone on a strike. Almost 35,000 cabs will go off the road on Wednesday which is somehow going to disrupt the services in the city of Bengaluru. The Taxi drivers’ union continue to protest against the app-based cab aggreagtors.

This saga has been going on for quite some time now. The union had actually submitted a petition to the state government with their demands on it, which seemed to baseless. Ola Share and Uber Pool are two of the most popular services among the daily commuters. First of all, they are cheap and secondly, they are environmentally viable. But the Ola and the Uber drivers do not want them at all.

They also want their penalties of arriving late, cancelling trips to be waived off or at least bring down to ₹ 50 from ₹ 500. The cab drivers also want to be at-par with the expensive to and fro airport fares like the state-run taxi services. The cabbies also do not want to pay the toll while coming into the city from the airport. So we can kind of foresee that if these demands are met, then the passengers are going to face major inconvenience.

However, both Ola and Uber have requested the Transport Commissioner of Karnataka to seek help from the Central government so that they can run their cab-sharing services legally. Therefore, the union has gone for a full day strike yet again.

In a city, where there are more than 1.3 lakh cabs run every single day, will 35,000 cabs (which went off the road on Wednesday) make much of a difference for the commuters? There are autos which will play as usual. Buses and metro will also run normally. Therefore, the cab drivers really need to rethink their idea of going off the street. Not only it is affecting their earning but also their reputation.

• Ola and Uber drivers strike
• Karnataka
• Cab-Sharing