2,500 cabs likely go off road

Getting a cab on hire may become difficult soon with as many as 2,500 cabs attached to unregistered service providers likely to go off road, at least for a short span of time.

Industry insiders said it is difficult to estimate how many cabs will go off road as there are many service providers who themselves are not registered, and there are many cab drivers who are members of multiple company registers.

There are around 7,500 registered city taxis in the city and the number of cabs plying on the road would be at least double that number.

Meanwhile, the crackdown on unregistered cab services is expected to stop the price war raging between the new aggregators, city taxi operators and autorickshaw drivers.

Radhakrishna Holla, secretary of Bangalore Tourist Taxi Owners’ Association, said that it was the aggregators with deep pockets who had started the price war. With them exiting the arena, he said the price war will be a thing of the past.

Manjunath of Adarsha Auto Union said that there was no question of reducing the autorickshaw fare as it was scientifically decided based on the mileage and fuel costs. He said autorickshaw drivers, being independent entrepreneurs, were small fish compared to the organised fleets and aggregators of cabs. “This is a long needed course correction to provide us a level playing field,” he said.