Uber and Ola ride sharing may end in this city soon

The City Taxi Scheme, 2017 may ban shared rides.
The cab aggregators operate with contract carriage permits that allow point-to-point transportation with no stopovers.
Such rides cannot be allowed unless there is a suitable amendment to the Act.

The Delhi government's City Taxi Scheme, 2017 may ban shared rides provided by cab aggregators in the national capital. The scheme is being scrutinised by senior officials and its finalisation is in the last stages after which it will be notified, said a source in the AAP government.

"The scheme, which is a regulatory framework for cab services in the city, will ban shared cab rides as it is not compatible with the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988," said the source. The cab aggregators operate with contract carriage permits that allow point-to-point transportation with no stopovers between the origin and final destination of a ride.

In contrast to this, the stage carriage permit, given for public service buses, allows picking up and dropping passengers at different stops on a given route.

The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, has no provision to allow shared rides by cabs operating under contract carriage permits. Such rides cannot be allowed unless there is a suitable amendment to the Act," added the source.

Earlier this year, Karnataka Transport Minister had said the Motor Vehicle Act and Karnataka On-demand Transportation Technology Aggregators Rules, 2016 states that the rules for taxi aggregators allows picking passengers ‘only’ from one point to another, and there is no permission to make multiple stops. O do so, they would require a special permit. How do they get the permit? Well, they can’t because it is provided only to state-run buses. The first question back then on everyone's mind was why the sudden change of heart when the services have been around for some time now.

In case of the Delhi City Taxi Scheme, the government had launched it back in 2015. And, it is now being updated. Under this scheme, it will also be mandatory to install GPS and a ‘panic’ button.

With inputs from PTI

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