MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday disposed of a PIL which sought a regulatory framework to govern two-wheeler aggregators after the government informed the court that a committee has been formed and it would submit its report in six months. A bench of Justices P Velmurugan and KK Ramakrishnan posted the case after six months for reporting compliance.
The litigant, R Naveen Kumar of Madurai, stated in his petition that app-based bike taxi services operated through digital aggregators such as Rapido, Ola, Uber, etc. have become an integral part of the transport ecosystem and serve as a primary source of livelihood for students and unemployed youth from economically weaker sections of the community.
However, the state’s failure to notify a specific scheme for such use of bikes for hire has created a critical regulatory vacuum, affecting the safety of passengers as well as rights and livelihood of bike taxi drivers, he claimed.