Taxi owners see proposed new norms as mixed bag

Individual commercial car owners and drivers have every reason to smile with the Centre's proposed guidelines for taxi operators that will allow aggregators such as Ola and Uber to charge up to three times the minimum fare during the day and up to four times between midnight and 5 am. But the removal of any cap on total cabs allowed to each aggregator has left existing players frowning.

 "They are allowing taxis with All India Tourist Permit (AITP) to enter the field, along with private cars. This will increase competition and hence a loss of profits," said Md Idris Khan, who owns a taxi and plies for an Indian app-based company. "Two years ago, I started by earning Rs85,000-Rs 1,00,000 a month. Now, my earning is limited to Rs65,000-Rs70,000."

This is not the only fear. The premise for categorizing a car by length to be branded as a taxi has perturbed many. The price curbs will cover vehicles that are less than 4 metres in length, which have been categorised as 'economy taxi'. "This will be allowing one set to enjoy advantages of another set," claimed Khalid Alam, another car owner-driver.

Owners said that in general trips were down and two long trips a day were enough to upset their targeted number of trips. A minimum of 11 trips might be the norm in a day, say insiders, but profits kick in only if 19 or 22 trips get completed a day. "As it is now, getting 19 trips in a 14-hour cycle is proving difficult. With new cabs entering business, these may now become distant dreams," said another cab owner-driver who refused to be named.

A section also believes that there will be more sub-categories that will now be on offer by the companies. Now, share rides are extremely popular. More cars will mean creation of new categories and new business models for the app-cab companies.

SUV-owner Bidhan Roy, who is driving for an app-based company for the past one year, questioned why AITP vehicles that paid Rs5,000 for a license should be treated on par with someone who paid up to Rs25,000 to obtain a city license.

The norms also allow private vehicles to be used as taxis by paying a fee and getting their permissions online. Taxis with AITP will be allowed to operate under aggregators. AITP cars can also be engaged by BPOs, IT firms, private companies, government departments and PSUs for long-term hiring if they conform to local norms.

Most app-based companies are already complying with local fuel and other norms and have set up app-based metering system and call centres for attending to SOS calls.