Strike by Mumbai’s Ola, Uber cabs partial, but prices surge

A section of drivers of the 45,000 app-based Ola and Uber cabs in Mumbai have gone off the road from this morning, pushing up fares for those still plying and causing inconvenience to commuters.

Banded together under the banner of Action Committee for Maharashtra, the taxi drivers have switched off their mobile phones, thus going offline and making themselves unavailable for commuters.

The strike however was not total, though the committee said most of the cabs were off the roads.

According to Hindustan Times, prices surged during the morning peak hours as there was a clear shortage of cabs.

''We decided to go on strike at a meeting called on Monday evening. The strike is with effect from Monday midnight,'' Yakub Mehta of the action committee said, according to The Tribune.

Drivers of the app cabs who have joined another union said they would go on an indefinite strike later this week.

Apart from reduced commissions to the app providers, the drivers are demanding security after several app-based cabs were attacked by commuters recently over surge in pricing. Even last week they had held a silent protest march from the Uber office in Kurla to the Ola office in Andheri (East).

Neither Ola nor Uber have issued any official communication.

According to HT's sources, the drivers might announce an official strike later this week as many of them are going under the banner of a well known mill workers' union.