Fixing fee for mobile app based auto services: Transport Department to hold meeting with public today

The Transport Department will hold a consultation meeting with citizen groups on the fixation of fee for auto services provided by mobile-app based aggregators, such as Ola, Uber, and Rapido, on Tuesday.

A senior official of the department said that over 40 people representing citizen committees at traffic police levels have been invited to take part in the meeting.

Meanwhile, in a meeting on Monday with the auto drivers’ union, representatives of the union vehemently opposed fixing of fee for mobile app based service providers.

C.N. Sreenivas, office-bearer of the union affiliated to CITU, said, “The taxi aggregators in the city are operating without obtaining any licence from the department. Rising auto fare in favour of the aggregators will go against the interest of the conventional auto drivers. We want the same auto fares to continue and the department to allow only digital meter auto drivers to run their business. We also demanded officials to initiate action against those auto drivers who refuse to ply and demand excess fare from the passengers”. 

Transport Commissioner S.N. Siddaramappa said, “As per the court’s direction we held the meeting with auto drivers. On Tuesday, the department will hold a meeting with representatives of citizen committees that are active to seek their response. After receiving the response from the stakeholders, the same thing will be appraised to the court.”

The official said that aggregators too took part in the meeting on Monday. 

In 2021, the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) fixed a basic fare of ₹30 for the first two kilometres and ₹15 thereafter for every km. A few weeks ago, the aggregators were accused of flouting the fare rules by charging exorbitant fares. After the department asked the aggregator to stop the auto services, the same was challenged before the court.

The court had directed the department to meet the stakeholders to reach consensus on fixing fees for providing auto services by the aggregators.  

An official said that after the issue reached the High Court, the court had allowed the taxi aggregators to charge an additional 15% (including 5 % GST) above the auto fare fixed by the authorities. However, aggregators had expressed displeasure that it is financially not viable to offer auto services on their platform with existing rates. One of the aggregators had even announced that it is contemplating to limit the auto services to certain areas of the city to make operations viable.