BENGALURU: After the Karnataka High Court ordered bike taxi operators -- Rapido, Ola and Uber -- to stop operations in six weeks and stated that it cannot issue directions to the state government to consider white-board two-wheelers to operate commercially as ‘transport vehicles’ with necessary permits, transport department officials said they do not have any plan to grant contract carriage licences to two-wheelers.
“Bike taxi operators are citing the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) advisory issued to state governments clarifying that motorcycles fall within the definition of ‘contract carriages’ as per section 2(7) of the Motor Vehicles (MV) Act, 1988, and that the Karnataka government should consider the advisory and grant contract carriage permits to two-wheelers and bike taxis,” a top transport official said.
He stated that they do not have any plans to grant contract carriage licences to two-wheelers and that there is already wide opposition to bike taxis from auto and cab operators in the state.
Sharing the history of bike taxis in the state, the official said, “Bike taxis have been operating in the state since 2016, and the issue of operation of the taxis was pending with the high court since 2021. In 2021, the state government came up with the Karnataka Electric Bike Taxi Scheme, permitting aggregators to obtain licences from the transport department and operate e-bike taxis as per the laid-down conditions. The major intention of the government permitting the e-bike taxis was to boost the last-mile connectivity from Metro stations, railway stations and bus stands and also create employment opportunities”.
He said in 2024, the government imposed a ban on e-bike taxis as it felt that the intention of introducing e-bike taxis were not being fulfilled and there were instances of bike taxi users being attacked and molested. “With the withdrawal of the e-bike taxi policy, there is a ban on operations of all bike taxis -- e-bike taxis and petrol-run two-wheelers. However, bike taxi operators were claiming that the ban only applies to e-bikes and they continued their operations,” he said.