BHUBANESWAR: Passengers continued to face severe inconvenience as the ongoing strike by the ride-hailing app drivers entered its second day on Tuesday, with hundreds of them staging demonstration at Mahatma Gandhi Marg pressing for fulfilment of their seven-point charter of demands.
Among the worst affected were the airport passengers who alleged they had to wait for around 15-30 minutes after coming out of the airport to book taxis offline to reach their destinations. People also struggled to book rides through state-backed mobility platform Odisha Yatri due to the prevalent situation. In some cases, they even had to spend more money to book an offline ride.
In view of the chaotic situation outside the airport, the Commissionerate Police has since Monday beefed up security in the area and instructed PCR vans to help passengers in the event of any emergency.
Meanwhile, the agitating taxi and auto drivers, and bike riders, working with private aggregators such as OLA, Uber and Rapido, etc., reiterated their demand for government regulation of online taxi fares and fixed rates for passengers.
They demanded that the state government and aggregator companies jointly determine minimum and maximum fares while drivers be paid a fair amount for the time they spend waiting for customers during a ride or when a customer cancels a ride.
Their other demands included that the app-based companies be prohibited from adding new vehicles to their platforms without regulation.
Smart City Online Auto Association leader Dinabandhu Nayak said around 30,000 cab and auto drivers and bike riders are currently working actively with different app-based companies and agitating over fulfilment of their just demands. “One of the private aggregators has agreed to revise the rates fixed for rides, while others are yet to consider it. Our strike will continue as long as our demands are not fulfilled,” Nayak said.
Transport commissioner Amitabh Thakur said they had a meeting with the agitators on Monday and are looking into their demands.
