Ola, Uber cab drivers stage protest in Pune, flyers inconvenienced

On the flight to Pune from Delhi, Shirish Kamble and his family never thought that they would have to wait for more than an hour to get a cab outside Pune Airport. But they did! The reason being the one-day protest staged by Ola- and Uber- drivers against the low per-kilometre remuneration paid by these aggregator companies.

“We arrived from Delhi to Pune in the afternoon and when we tried to book a cab on the Ola and Uber mobile applications, none of the drivers responded. We had to wait for almost an hour after which I called my friend to pick us up from the airport. Finally, we managed to travel to Hadapsar,” Shirish said.

With nearly 15,000 passengers travelling daily from Pune Airport, the Kambles weren’t the only ones who had to face this ordeal.

After being unable to call a cab, Megha, an IT professional, took an auto-rickshaw from the airport. “Today morning when I arrived at Pune Airport, I started booking a cab online as usual. For 30 minutes, none of the drivers responded so I decided to step out of the airport premises and booked an auto-rickshaw instead,” she said.

Around 300 Ola and Uber cab drivers staged a protest on Monday over the low fares paid to them. As per the policy of these companies, the drivers are paid ₹9 to ₹12 per kilometre which is less than the auto-rickshaw fares in the city. The drivers refused to take passengers from the airport, and demanded a change in policy and increase in per-kilometre fares.

“We cannot afford to run cab services any more for passengers travelling from Pune Airport as the per km charges paid to us by the companies are very less. From the last several months, we have been demanding a hike in the per kilometre rates but nothing has been done by both companies. Today, we staged a one-day protest and kept our cabs out of service around Pune Airport,” said Santosh Shinde, a cab driver.

Another cab driver, Rohit Kendre, said, “The state government has set fares for auto-rickshaw drivers starting from ₹23 while we get paid ₹12 per kilometre so there is a huge difference and we hardly get ₹40 to ₹50 even after long-distance journeys as there is a company commission in our total charges. Hence, our demand is that the per kilometre charges be increased to ₹18 per km.”