Nothing legal about these taxis

Uber cabs have been banned by Delhi government since a multinational company executive was allegedly raped by a driver in December.

But you could call one to your doorstep right now through their mobile app, if you wish. You could even get a discount on the fare.

The December case forced the Delhi Transport Department to initiate strict action – and revealed that only six radio taxi operators were actually authorised to run in the capital.

What followed was a ban on all such mobile application-based cab booking services which involve an estimated 10,000 taxis.

But the firms continue to ignore the ban and have applied for registration under the recently-modified radio taxi rules. In fact, the controversy has made the service more popular among youngsters with people now preferring them over costly radio taxis.

Senior Transport Department officials say that that despite the measures adopted by these app-based service providers since December, they don’t meet even the minimum conditions for procuring a licence under the Modified Radio Taxi Scheme.

For over a year, these companies were operating outside the licence regime brought in for radio taxi services in 2006.

In fact, many of the rules prescribed for radio taxi services earlier didn’t even apply to these technology-driven firms which took bookings without actually having any drivers on their rolls – unlike the radio taxi operators.

The department, however, has accepted the registration applications and told the firms to remove the deficiencies. Uber has applied through a company Resource Expert India, while Ola has applied under APRA Cabs India.

Delhi government maintains that these firms cannot ply taxis as the ban imposed on them in December has not been revoked. “The taxis operated by unauthorised regulators would be impounded. We have already asked the enforcement teams to act on it,” an official says.

Uber says it has been trying to present its point of view to the authorities. Regular meetings are being held with the Transport Department and police to work towards the Kolkata model, set by the Bidhannagar police. There they had introduced new regulations for companies like Uber.

“We believe this is the progressive model that ultimately puts the safety of consumers first, while recognising the power of new technologies like Uber that will make city transportation safer,” Uber said in a statement.

Under the Bidhannagar model, applicable in the satellite town, Uber and similar cab services have to install features on their app that allow riders to contact the local police station and share their location with five people.

Additionally, every driver must go through police verification.
Though no such breakthrough has been achieved in the capital, the government has issued ‘deficiency memos’ asking the licence seekers to furnish all the details mentioned in the rule book.
In a move to bring such firms under the fold of the law, the city government on January 1 also laid down some ground rules to fix the loopholes.

According to the new rules, the licencee has to install emergency buttons and tracking devices in the cabs. But the the Transport Department memo indicates that Uber didn’t provide many details.
“The call centre management details were not provided. Besides its undertaking/application didn’t mention  telephone number, e-mail address and address proof of their registered office in Delhi,” the official says.

The Transport Department has issued a similar ultimatum to TaxiForSure and Ola, which is backed by Japan’s SoftBank Corp.

Freebies abound

Despite the ban, the apps of such companies are working. And customers are being lured in through attractive offers. One is even offering the first ride free to customers who download its app.

In a mail it sent to users, Uber had said, “A few days ago, the Uber Delhi team hosted an in-person interactive sessions with a few hundreds of you, from our passionate Delhi rider community, to hear what you had to say. Thank you for sharing. We’ve listed and we know you want us back. To that end, yesterday we applied for a licence under the radio taxi scheme to bring you more transportation options.”

Besides giving attractive offers to its customers on its `relaunch', Uber offered its drivers in Delhi a bonus of Rs 250 for every trip until January 31. Delhi is one of the big markets for the San Francisco-based taxi aggregator.

And incidentally, it is the only city where Uber has applied for a licence. Under fire over the safety of passengers, the firm also claims to have tightened the process of screening its drivers, including their criminal antecedents.

A background screening firm, First Advantage, has also been hired. They say it will bring in additional layers of screening over the standard licensing process. It will include address verification, a local criminal court search, and a national criminal database search.

Transport Department officials tasked with enforcing the ban claim that it is hard to detect individual cabs flouting the ban. Unlike the six authorised radio taxi cab companies, the cars provided by the web-based taxi firms don’t bear their brand name or logo.

The department also faces a severe staff crunch as it has only 30 small teams of enforcement officials. So it has fallen upon Delhi Police to enforce the ban. Police have been impounding the cars, but express inability to completely enforce the ban. 

“Since there are no markings on the unlicensed app-based cabs, we have been randomly stopping a number of vehicles and making inquiries,” says Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Anil Shukla. They  have challaned over 2,000 vehicles so far.

The job is difficult as Delhi has several categories of car services, including radio taxis, which traditionally are summoned by phone and then dispatched by a radio operator, and metered taxis, which are typically booked at taxi stands.

Police and the Transport Department regularly indulge in a blame game with both putting the onus on each other to enforce the ban.

“It is the job of the government to enforce the ban and that can only be done after the government asks its agencies to deactivate the mobile applications and also shut down their control rooms,” Shukla added.

Police say their own role is just to regulate traffic and enforce the Motor Vehicles Act.
Police themselves have downloaded the Uber app.  They say it is not possible to physically verify every cab running in the capital. “We have been booking cabs and taking action when the driver reports,” Shukla said.