After a seeming thaw in its stance on the issue, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Delhi government is back to considering outlawing shared rides aboard cabs operating in the Capital.
Opinion on whether or not to ban shared rides on cabs, mostly being operated by web app-based service providers and aggregation platforms such as Uber and Ola, is now divided between the Transport Department and the higher echelons of the AAP Delhi government, sources claim.
“The government is in favour of not imposing a ban after, and in spite of, various presentations made to it regarding the absence of enabling legal provisions for such usage of vehicles permitted to ferry passengers during point-to-point journeys in the city due to the absence of enabling legal provisions for such travel in the Motor Vehicle Act 1988 in its current form,” said a source.
According to the source, lack of clarity on the issue continues to prevail even as the government continues to give final touches to the City Taxi Scheme 2017, a regulatory framework for the operation of cab services in the Capital, which is in the process of being finalised. A draft of the said policy is scheduled to be put up for public consultation soon.
At the core of the issue is the difference between the conditions of contract carriage and stage carriage permits. A contract carriage permit allows for ferrying a passenger or passengers for hire from one point to another without stopping to pick up, or set down, more passengers; a stage carriage permit allows the ferrying of passengers picked up, and set down, in stages at separate fares.
Cabs are operated as per the provisions of contract carriage permits unlike, say, buses which pick up and drop passengers along permitted routes as per stage carriage permit rules.
“There is no legal framework to allow shared rides on cabs operating under contract carriage permits at the moment; a suitable amendment to the MV Act allowing such rides is the sole prerogative of the Government of India making them illegal in the meanwhile,” said the source.
Bengaluru had, recently, banned shared journeys aboard vehicles being operated by certain prominent cab aggregation service providers in light of similar legal constraints.
In addition to legal curbs on shared rides aboard cabs, the Scheme, which was being drafted to allow the registration of cab aggregation service providers, according to an official, would also institute caps on fares as well limiting the total number of vehicles that can be operated by them.
It will, however, be the first opportunity allowing the registration of certain prominent cab aggregation services in the Capital two years after a Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) directive to shut them down following the rape of a private executive aboard a cab in November, 2014.
The Delhi Government Transport Department had also requested the Department of Electronic and Information Technology (DEITY) to block the web-based apps of three major taxi operators citing complaints that these were still operating in the Capital despite being unregistered and legally allowed to ply.
