Kaali-­Peeli app to offer 25% discount to stay in business

MUMBAI: Facing tough competition from app-based aggregators such as Ola and Uber, Kaali-Peeli taxi drivers from Navi Mumbai will offer discounts on fare to commuters

MUMBAI: Facing tough competition from app-based aggregators such as Ola and Uber, Kaali-Peeli taxi drivers from Navi Mumbai will offer discounts on fare to commuters from Tuesday, provided they are booking the cabs through the taxi union’s app or call center.

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‘9211 Cabs’, an IT company that runs an app-based taxi service for black and yellow cabs on behalf of various taxi unions, has announced a 25% discount for a journey from Mumbai to Navi Mumbai, while the discount for a Navi Mumbai to Mumbai travel will be 10%.

“Commuters will get a flat 10% and 25% discount on the fare shown on the meter, depending on whether they are travelling to Mumbai or to Navi Mumbai,” said Malay Kothari. He added that commuters will have to bear the toll cost and luggage fare.

This is first time that Kaali-Peeli cab drivers are offering such a discount, after experimenting with it in Bandra and BKC, where they offered a 20% discount.

“The new scheme will be available to the passengers from Tuesday,” said Kothari.

Taxi union sources said that the daily earning of cabbies had gone downand so they were offering such discounts. Vijay Chauhan, 49, a Mumbai Taximens Union activist, said, “We are aware that Ola and Uber has taken benefit of our weakness, but to improve the situation, we need to adopt new means. Otherwise, the situation will worsen as we have already lost 40% of our earnings to Ola-Uber.”