Gopal Singh (name changed on request), 38, had pinned his hopes on fulfilling his teenaged son’s dream of owning a new mobile phone by putting longer hours behind the wheel during the second phase of the odd-even scheme.
In fact, Singh, a resident of Gurgaon, had even begun nursing dreams of being able to pay the EMI on his vehicle, attached to an app-based cab aggregation company, well before the due date this time what with having decided to work “with minimal rest” between April 15 and April 30.
After all, he said, “it was just a matter of 15 days” during which “the sky was the limit” as long as he was “prepared to put in more effort”. Unfortunately for him, that was not to be.
“I don’t know what I did wrong. They came to my house and asked me to prove that the car belonged to me before towing it away saying I had overcharged a customer on Tuesday afternoon. How was I supposed to know that the Chief Minister of Delhi was going to make surge pricing a crime three hours before he made the announcement,” Singh asked.
“Not just me, even my family needed a lot of convincing from my end to come on board with me aiming for better earnings at the expense of my own health and comfort. At the end of the day that didn’t matter; what mattered was a political announcement,” he rued.
According to the Delhi Transport Department, as many as 50 cars of app-based cab companies like Uber and Ola were impounded for alleged overcharging based on complaints by customers till Wednesday afternoon alone. A majority of these were registered in States other than Delhi with the total number of such vehicles being confiscated now pegged over 68.
Santosh Sharma (name changed), another driver with an app-based cab operator, claims he “was harassed for hours before paying a bribe to be let off” while entering the Delhi border from Noida on Thursday, questioned the Delhi government’s decision to ban surge pricing.
“The issue needs to be resolved between the company and the government instead of us drivers being made the scapegoats. How is surge pricing a crime? Unlike local taxi operators, we are not allowed to start our meter garage to garage, which means I am allowed to begin charging the customer only when I pick them up even if I am located five kilometres away,” he said.
“Why is the government blind to this fact? If a customer needs conveyance and I am providing my service irrespective of how far I travel to do that, before even beginning to charge them as per company policy, how do I become a criminal?” he asked.
Around 50 cars of
app-based cab companies have
been impounded for ‘overcharging’
