Bharat Mhaske, a cab driver in Mumbai
The government's decision to ban Web-based taxi services has come as a shock to Parvez Ahmad, a cab driver in Delhi and the only earning member in a family of eight. After this decision, Parvez suddenly finds himself unemployed.
"Whatever I would earn, between Rs. 800-1000 every day, the whole household runs in that," he said, pulling out the sticker advertising the Web-based taxi from his car says with distress. "Punish the person who is guilty, by all means, but why penalise those who are earning honestly. I'm having sleepless nights wondering how I will repay my car loan."
Just three years ago, Parvez had upgraded from an autorickshaw to a car with the hope of improving his financial standing. Now he is worried about a bank loan of Rs 1.5 lakh that he still has to repay.
In Mumbai too, similar fate awaits Bharat Mhaske, who also has a loan, a dependent family and is on the verge of losing his job. "I just bought this car during Diwali. I took a loan of 5 lakh on it. How do I repay that if I can't drive the cab?" he said.
Like Bharat and Parvez, thousands of taxi drivers will have to stay off roads following the government's ban on such services. Service providers like Ola maintain that their drivers pass the stringent compliance check. They also say they are now working on creating an additional layer of GPS tracking in all their cabs.
Many working professionals and users of private taxis have called the ban a knee-jerk reaction. "I don't think banning is the right thing to do. It's a short cut. Put regulations in place instead of banning and make sure those rules are followed," said a college student.
What's even more surprising is that the transport department in the capital has no fix on the number of services and the cars that use their name operating in Delhi, raising serious questions over the government's own regulation systems.