With Assembly elections a year away, Karnataka’s regional party of farmers seems keen to woo cab drivers. Backed with a seed money of ₹2.5 crore from Janata Dal (Secular) State President H.D. Kumaraswamy, cab drivers, who had gone on a protest recently against Ola and Uber, hope to launch their own aggregator platform soon.
With an unlikely ally in the former chief minister, the drivers hope to take on the big taxi aggregator companies with their own regional variant that will work on the co-operative model. The new service is expected to be launched within a few weeks with a firm ‘regional’ stamp in its name — like Kadamba or Hoysala. Mr. Kumaraswamy told The Hindu that he is not in favour of the service being named after him.
“We will give seed money of ₹2.5 crore and may eventually look at investing additional funds in the future as the drivers will have to compete against multi-national companies,” said Mr. Kumaraswamy. The app is most likely to be managed by a drivers’ co-operative and on a no-profit no-loss basis to ensure maximum earnings to the drivers.
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Thousands of drivers had approached Mr. Kumaraswamy late last year seeking his support for their demand for the government to intervene and ensure protection for their earnings. Many of them are from Ramanagaram and Mandya districts, which are JD(S) strongholds.
Ola and Uber have been engaged in a price war and were offering basic fares as low as ₹6 per kilometre in the city. Coupled with this, they have hiked commissions that the drivers have to pay to the companies.
These led to widespread resentment among drivers, who complained of a drop in earnings, and went on a protest.
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