Day light Robbery by taxi aggregators

It is heartening to note that Karnataka Nixes surge pricing by IT enabled cab aggregators such as OLa and Uber (ET dated 4/4/16). The loot by the service operators continue unabated and customers are taken for a clean ride by charging even three times of normal fare and that too on Sundays and non peak hours..  This has been the experience by two vedic Scholars who  were  in the city the other day  and who had been  helped by a hotelier to book an ola Cab as they were not having the required app in their mobile.. These hapless victims had to shell out a sum of Rs 1043 on Sunday the 4^th April at 2.20 PM to cover a distance of just 22 Kms as recorded by the Cabbie’s cell phone.  The driver  pleaded innocence and said he did not know anything about the fare fixation. It worked out to Rs 50 a KM for an Indica cab KA 13B 6541 an old model. Even a ride by BMW or a Jaguar would not have cost them so much.  This sort of  surge pricing by indicating 2X, 3X etc in the mobile which is not understood by many and  which is  is nothing but a day light robbery and also  robbing not only of the public money but also the image of the Police, Transport Ministry, the Government, the State and the Country. If such a  greedy and exorbitant pricing are not nipped in the bud itself , this can lead to law and order problem  over a period as apart from open loot the safety of travellers in such cabbies is also at stake as  is reported every now and then.  These cabbie operators do not seem to be investigating about  the antecedents of the drivers and many are  goons and cannot be handled by any sense of decency and in a civilised manner.. The drivers' license details are not made available to the consumers and once something goes wrong even reporting such  wrong doings is rendered impossible, .Public cannot  be expected to have the affordability knowledge of technology  or the patience to bear with/handle such atrocities committed on them by the taxi aggregators.  People can only ventilate their grievances through media or other avenues, but the regulatory action and enforcement of laws have to necessarily come from the concerned authorities. It is high time that anybody can get away with anything is once for all given a good bye by the authorities. Good administration will  definitely turn out to be a win win situation for all stakeholders of the society, the state, economy and the nation.    

Dr T V Gopalakrishnan