Taxi and autorickshaw drivers under Jai Bhagwan Taxi Rickshaw Sanghatana have announced they would go on indefinite strike from August 29 in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai demanding the state government to regulate operation of cab aggregators such as Uber and Ola.
"We have lost hopes from the state government and the chief minister, who did not fulfil his promise to come up with rules or Act to regulate these app-based aggregators, who are eating into our money and passengers," president of this relatively new association Balasahab Sanap said.
"Now, we are left with no another option but to resort to indefinite strike. We gave government ample time to look into our demands...it did nothing but only made fake promises," he said.
Sanap claimed that over 95 per cent taxi and autorickshaw drivers under the association and their owners will take part in the strike.
Their three key demands include, to put the operations of app-based cab aggregators on hold till rules and regulations are formulated by the government, if allowed, they should be asked to ply outside the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, they should be under the ambit of RTO rules and regulations.
In June, taxi and autorickshaw drivers under this banner had protested at Azad Maidan seeking inquiry and action against cab aggregators over their pricing strategy to attract customers.
Meanwhile, Mumbai Autorickshaw and Taximen's Union has also announced to go on a day-long strike on August 31 over their various demands.
"We have announced a day-long strike on August 31. Our key demand is check on operation of vehicles of call centres in the city used for purposes other than ferrying call centre employees. Our demand also include regulation of app-based aggregators," president of the union Shashank Rao said.
He claimed that the union has 83,541 autorickshaw drivers with it.
Photograph: PTI Photo
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