Treat taxi aggregators as normal cab services: Centre

To regulate app-based cab services such as Uber and Ola, the Centre has issued guidelines, which include extensive background checks of drivers to ensure safety of passengers, to states.

"We have issued guidelines to states that app-based cab companies should be treated as a normal cab services and there should be stringent background checks of drivers employed, to ensure safety of passengers," an official told PTI.

The guidelines may end uncertainty on how app-based service providers should operate in the country. They state that persons convicted in the past for any cognisable offence should not be inducted as drivers in view of passenger safety, the official said.

He added the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had asked states to ensure companies operated with call centres and that app-based aggregators should follow emission norms.

"We welcome the advisory from the Ministry of Road Transport and we believe this is a major step towards positively impacting the ecosystem and its stakeholders, that technology platforms like ours have created," Ola said in a statement.

"We will continue to work with the government, under the aegis of this progressive directive, offering our complete support and commitment towards building mobility for a billion people," it added.

"App-based cab companies should not hide behind the garb of aggregators or developer of digital technology. An app-based cab should be treated as a normal cab. This will clear the air for states to form their own rules, treating these on a par with other cab fleet owners, and the app-based cab should be treated as a normal cab," Road Transport and Highways Secretary Vijay Chhibber had said last week.

The Delhi government had, on January 1, banned the operation of app-based cab services till they complied with the guidelines of Radio Taxi Scheme of 2006, which was amended on December 26 last year. The scheme was amended after a woman executive was allegedly raped in an Uber cab in December last year.

The order was challenged by Ola before the high court, which on July 29 passed an interim order upholding the Delhi government's decision.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Persons convicted in the past for any cognizable offence should not be inducted as drivers
   
• There should be stringent background checks of drivers employed
  

 

Companies to operate with call centres
 

Aggregators' cabs to follow emission norms
 

The Delhi govt had on Jan 1 banned operation of Ola and Uber