Road ahead dark, say cab operators

One company, which had a fleet of 1,600 cars before the pandemic broke out, has just 60 now

Cab operators in Bengaluru expect business to remain gloomy at least till January next year.

With huge fleets, they used to serve the IT industry, ferrying their employees to work and back. They typically signed annual contracts, and did not depend on apps and casual trips.

V B Swamy, managing director, Suhalaya Travels, has been running his business for 18 years. “Our industry was booming before the pandemic broke out, and many of us had made big investments so that we could expand. Today, we have no work,” he says.

Cab operators are in no position to repay loans, as they have sold off all their assets and are still falling short.

“We had a fleet of 1,600 cars, but today we have only 60. Since last year, many drivers have dropped out and taken their vehicles with them. A good number of cabs have been confiscated when owners defaulted on their EMIs,” says the owner of one of Bengaluru’s leading corporate cab service providers.

The government has been deaf to the sector’s requests for tax waivers and other concessions.

“Through our associations, we have been requesting the Karnataka government to provide us with some concessions as work from home has badly affected our finances, but we have had no luck so far,” says Swamy. Shivakumar, who has been managing an employee transport service for 20 years, says his company is now back to where it started out, after losing its assets and employees over the past year.

“As we could no longer provide work, most employees and drivers have gone back to their hometowns or shifted to platforms like Ola and Uber. Even there, they are struggling,” he says.

Driver Ravi Kumar started working for Ola and Uber last year. “But despite toiling every day, and taking up as many rides as possible, nothing is working out,” he says.

Clause hurdle

In some cases, a contractual clause is coming in the way of drivers who want to switch companies.

“Some drivers are bound by the ‘driver-owner scheme’, where for a fixed period, the ownership of the vehicle lies in the hands of the travel operator and is then transferred to the driver. People who have signed such contracts are not able to switch to Ola and Uber,” says Tanveer Pasha, president, Ola Uber Drivers and Owners Association.

The situation will get worse before it gets better, predicts Swamy.

“From what we have been hearing, no one is really planning to reopen their offices before January, especially with the third wave looming. Once everything fully opens up, we may have to start from scratch,” he adds.

Ola drivers facing trouble

Ola Cabs and the Karnataka government are at loggerheads. The transport department says the ride aggregator has not renewed its licence under the Karnataka On-Demand Transportation Technology Aggregators Rules, 2016.

Ola drivers on the roads of Bengaluru are bearing the brunt of this conflict. “Policemen are catching hold of us, calling us frauds and asking us to pay fines. It is not our mistake that the company has not renewed its licence,” says Mahesh (name changed on request), who drives an Ola cab. It is unjust to target drivers, says Tanveer Pasha, who heads a drivers’ union. “Action should be initiated against the firm. How can they function without a licence?” he says. If the government launches an app, drivers will no longer be at the mercy of private aggregators, he says.