Bike taxis: Transport department tells STA to first regulate cabs in Chandigarh,check overpricing

The department asked for a detailed report on how many cabs are registered in the city and what the STA has done to check ‘overcharging’ by the cab operators.

Four months after the State Transport Authority (STA) sent a proposal to allow bike taxis in Chandigarh, the transport department on Monday asked the STA to first regulate the cabs — both online transportation firms and regular ones, in city.

HT File

The department asked for a detailed report on how many cabs are registered in the city and what the STA has done to check ‘overcharging’ by the cab operators.

Amit Talwar, director, transport, said, “There were several complaints of overcharging by the cabs and we are not even aware of how many cabs are registered in city. We have asked the STA to send us a detailed report on both the issues before we consider bike taxis in city. We want to know as regulator, what is STA’s performance.”

Rajeev Tiwari, additional secretary, STA, said, “We will file the reply in a day or two. We are hopeful that the project of bike taxis will get a go ahead.”

In May this year, the Chandigarh administration had shelved its proposal over issues such as allowing a two-wheeler for public transport and potential health hazard as a single helmet will be used by different passengers. Also, the inability to install speed governors in two-wheelers.

Then in June, the STA had sent a fresh proposal after the Punjab government had urged the UT administration to consider allowing them permit as Punjab has already introduced bike taxis in Mohali in July 2017.

Cab aggregators Ola and Uber had applied for starting bike taxis in city. In September last year, the State Transport Authority (STA) had prepared a draft policy on bike taxis and submitted it to the administration for approval. But after two meetings, the proposal was shelved.

Project in Mohali

On July 25 last year, UberMOTO bike taxis launched 100 two-wheelers in Mohali under the ‘Apni Gaddi Apna Rozgar’ scheme, but a week later driver observed a strike and accused the company and the state government of not keeping the promises made to them at the scheme’s launch. But, they were not allowed to enter Chandigarh.

During that period, State Transport Authority (STA), Chandigarh, challaned around 25 drivers for entering city.