The Federation of Karnataka State Private Transport Associations urged the state government to fulfil four of their key demands in the ongoing budget session.
Their four key demands include issuing an ordinance to ban bike taxis, reducing road tax for buses to prevent migration and save taxes, taking strict action against aggregator companies and implementing ‘one city, one fare’ policy, and enforcing state laws for companies providing online goods and transport services such as Porter, Uncle among others to bring them under the ambit of state laws and obtain licences from the state.
Nataraj Sharma, president of the federation, said, “Despite the withdrawal of bike taxi scheme in the state, aggregator companies are citing pending writ petition from 2016 allowing bike taxis originally confined to Bengaluru city to expand to districts across Karnataka without proper authorisation. This unauthorised expansion has created significant issues for the unemployed.”
Further, Sharma said that many private tourist transport, contract carriage operators and others are registering their vehicles in the North Eastern states with lower road taxes. He said that with this exodus, the state government has incurred a loss of Rs 150 crore and demanded a 50% cut in road taxes in Karnataka.
“The ‘one city, one fare’ policy of the transport department is not followed and private cab aggregators are flouting this and charging as per their discretion. This situation has resulted in unhealthy competition among taxi drivers and owners,” Sharma said.
“Companies like Porter and Uncle are providing small goods vehicle services without the necessary licenses. They are engaging in exploitative practices, taking high commission from drivers and owners and harassing local drivers,” he said and urged that these companies be regulated. “We urge the CM to fulfil these four demands in the ongoing budget session,” Sharma concluded.