Over a hundred taxi drivers staged a demonstration here on Tuesday accusing private taxi aggregators of not revising the trip fares though the drivers face financial hardships due to COVID-19-induced lockdown and fuel price hike.
The drivers parked their cars on the Codissia Trade Fair Complex grounds as part of the demonstration. T. Soundararajan, a Coimbatore-based taxi owner who was one of the coordinators of the demonstration, told mediapersons the State government must fix the fares for taxis as the taxi aggregators had allegedly been taking nearly 43% of the fare for a given trip through taxes and commissions.
The government must also consider operating the taxis themselves to support the drivers, he added. If no action was taken against the aggregators, the drivers would stage a protest across the State by returning their voter identity cards and ration cards to the respective District Collectors, Mr. Soundararajan said. On June 30, a section of taxi drivers uninstalled the mobile applications of the two popular taxi aggregators in protest demanding a hike in their share of the trip fares.
