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Ola and Uber take taxi war off roads, on to blogposts
NEW DELHI: The taxi wars are not limited to streets anymore— it’s on the internet, too, as America’s Uber and India’s Ola kick off a blog fight.
NEW DELHI: The taxi wars are not limited to streets anymore— it’s on the internet, too, as America’s Uber and India’s Ola kick off a blog fight.
On Thursday, Pranay Jivrajka, first full-time employee and COO of Ola, wrote: “It is a shame that our competition has to fan a debate of nationalism to hide their identity of being a multinational, with serial violations of law as a business strategy, not just in India, but globally.”
When Uber entered India, it took ‘card on file’ for payments, violating of RBI regulations, Jivrajka wrote. “Yet they continued this for more than a year… it took an ultimatum from the RBI to make them fall in line. Ola chose not to do this… (and) lost market share for over a year.”
Some of the other allegations by Ola include use of white number plates for bike-taxis in Gurgaon and use of non-CNG taxis in Delhi. The blog also cited China’ s Alibaba and how its founder Jack Ma created invaluable assets for China. Ola is doing the same in India by creating value for the society.
Jivrajka’s write-up was in reaction to a blog by Bhavik Rathod, general manager, Uber India .“Regulations need to enable, not thwart a nascent industry that is shaping future mobility in cities across the world... Instead of rising above differences… it’s disappointing to note how baseless allegations are being levelled to confound and complicate matters ,” Rathod wrote.
Last month, Uber took the Karnataka government to court, requesting to quash new rules that require taxi aggregators to acquire new licences.
“For reasons unknown to us, we’ re yet to be granted the licence and have instead been asked to undergo the same process all over again with another local authority,” Rathod added.
