Hundreds of drivers protest in front of Ola's office in Bengaluru

The drivers were protesting against falling earnings as incentive payouts have reduced

Hundreds of drivers attached to India’s largest taxi aggregator Ola protested outside one of the company’s offices in East Bengaluru, as they stepped up their demand for higher earnings which they claim the company had promised when the joined.

The drivers, who began their strike on February 15 were protesting against falling earnings on platforms such as Uber and Ola as incentive payouts have reduced. Several of them claimed they were unable to pay back the EMIs on the cars they’d purchased after being promised hefty earnings by the two companies.

Ola did not respond to an email sent by Business Standard, while an Uber spokesperson could not be reached.

The strike by drivers in Bengaluru comes on the back of a similar protest by drivers on both platforms in Delhi which entered the seventh day on Thursday. The Delhi government is looking to intervene to get drivers to end their indefinite strike and return to work.

Protests against Uber and Ola have become a national phenomenon, with strikes across cities such as Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata besides Bengaluru and Delhi. The reason is largely the same across cities, with drivers complaining of falling earnings on the hand of both companies reducing earnings.

In the past few months, both taxi aggregators have moved away from paying incentives to drivers on the number of daily trips, instead of moving to an earnings-based incentive payout. However, as both companies have dropped fares significantly, drivers say their ability to earn more and thereby qualify for higher incentives has been reduced.

Moreover, with the number of cars on Uber and Ola going up across cities, drivers say their individual businesses have dropped. Estimates suggest that there are over 1 lakh cabs attached to these two platforms in the cities of Bengaluru and New Delhi, with Mumbai not being far behind.

While authorities have tried to intervene, they have said that the matter needs to largely be resolved between the two companies and the drivers. The drivers on Uber and Ola are not employees, but rather independent workers who use the platform to drive business for themselves.