Bike taxi service companies and their associated drivers are planning to move court to challenge the recent ban on their services by the Delhi government. Major companies providing bike taxi services include Uber, Ola and Rapido.
More than 1,20,000 drivers provide this service in the capital and before the ban, they were ferrying around 30-40 lakh people to their destinations every week. This makes the metropolis the largest market in the country for this service. For the youth, it is an economical mode of travel. These bikes are proving helpful for employed people.
The Delhi government has banned the service on the ground that bike taxi drivers have private registration numbers, while pick and drop passengers for hire is a commercial operation, and thus in violation of the Motor Vehicles Act.
Drivers and aggregators have planned to go to court after talks with the Delhi government failed. Expressing grief over the strictness being exercised by the government, a senior executive of an aggregator said, “The surprising thing is that the government has said that it will take 3-4 months to come out with new guidelines for aggregators. This has added to the uncertainty. This has left the drivers and us with no option but to go to court.
The official said that the operators have requested not to stop the operations, as this would negatively impact the livelihood of the bike taxi drivers.
