BENGALURU: The National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) has urged the State government to review the newly notified cab fares in Karnataka. On February 3, the Karnataka government, through a notification, revised cab fares in the state, doing away with the concept of surge pricing and fixing minimum fare applicable for 4 km.
Nasscom, in its blog post, said it has written a letter to the state government, raising its concerns. “Earlier, a range of per-km fare was in place. This allowed app-based taxi aggregators to deploy dynamic pricing, with guardrails, ie, within the permitted range of fares. With the latest notification, this is no longer possible because of the mandatory flat fares,” Nasscom said in the post dated February 29, and insisted that dynamic pricing be restored.
“The fare structure for app-based taxis and non-app-based city taxis was different earlier. The higher fare for app-based taxis considered the added value (such as route-tracking, ride-sharing feature, customer care services) offered by app-based taxi services, and taxis hailed on the street.
However, the new fare structure mandates the same fare for app-based and non-app-based taxis, thereby making it tougher to offer and improve value-added services. Further, given the flat fares, the earlier practice of app-based taxi aggregators to cover service fee/commission within the fare brackets is also not possible anymore,” Nasscom said