Unicorn startups in the ride hailing segment such as Ola, Uber, has been put under the scanner by the government for surge pricing practice, reported ET.
The development comes to light after the minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari, directed the government officials to take the required steps to check the increase in indefinite pricing.
In September this year, Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM) of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) had requested Gadkari to balance the surge-pricing limits for taxi aggregators under the Motor Vehicles Act 2019.
Ashwani Mahajan, All India co-convener, SJM, said, “Just in the last two weeks, we received screenshots where a fare of Rs 2,000 was quoted in Mumbai for a six-minute ride. This is outrageous and plain profiteering by these platforms.”
Mahajan had also alleged that the taxi platforms like Uber and Ola, were profiteering under the scope of increase pricing.
SJM in its demand, wanted the penalty to be imposed against the taxi app company in the cases of abrupt cancellations.
The organisation also wanted basic customer service and app features to be standardised to facilitate speaking with customer service centres in case of an emergency.
“We have demanded that INR 100 or an amount equivalent to 20 per cent of the fare be credited in the customer’s account in case of a driver cancelling a ride, no surge pricing on advance scheduled booking and basic customer service and app features must be standardised in case of emergencies,” Mahajan further added.