Taxi and auto unions don't seem to understand that if they refuse to ply, we will just look for someone else to ferry us at a reasonable price
I woke up this morning thinking, as I am almost always compelled to, about all the people most Bombayites love to hate. Naturally, the faces of our many politicians sprung to mind almost at once, aided by the many illegal hoardings routinely plastered across the city, all featuring their creepily smiling faces as they stare, point at random things or appear to walk purposefully towards the inauguration of projects that will inevitably fail.
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Their faces were followed by those of the men and women supposedly employed by the BMC, who get paid either for work that rarely lasts a few months or, as a number of scams have shown, for not turning up to work at all. Other worthies vying for position on my list included bus conductors, the tip-hungry staff at public hospitals and, of course, the men who drive taxis and rickshaws.
Most residents of Bombay don't really care about who drives them, be it a cool cab, regular cab, Ola or any new entrant that can help us get a rickshaw using an app. All we want is someone who agrees to ferry us for a reasonable price. File pic
It's amazing how so many of us unreservedly despise the many taxi and rickshaw unions that routinely hold our city to ransom. I'm told it's almost a family business for some of them. Apparently, one union leader has introduced his otherwise unemployable son to the joys of controlling another union. Father and son are both supposedly interested in the welfare of rickshaw and taxi drivers, but don't actually drive either vehicle.
Earlier this week, the Bombay Taximen's Union supposedly wrote a letter to the transport department, stating that mobile app-based aggregators like Uber and Ola do not have permission to run a cab sharing system. Using an app to share a cab may seem like common sense to most people with a brain so, naturally, union leaders had a problem with it.
They reportedly referred to these taxi services as 'illegal', which makes sense because few people would know what is or isn't illegal better than our rickshaw and taxi drivers. According to the Maharashtra Motor Vehicles Act, Section 22 (d) 178 (3) (b), for instance, any rickshaw driver refusing to ply can be fined R100, while a cabbie can be fined R200. When was the last time you met a representative of either group willing to uphold the law?
Some of the things they usually complain about are fair. The lack of amenities for drivers, for instance, is a genuine concern considering they sometimes travel long hours with no access to a public toilet or space to stop and eat a meal. They are routinely harassed by the traffic police for real or imagined transgressions, and no government has ever done anything to make their lives easier, possibly because they don't really come across as a potential vote bank.
And yet, what makes the unions insufferable is their complete disconnect from the reality of the common man's life in Bombay. A little over a month ago, they called for a strike to protest against fares charged by cab aggregators. Around one lakh rickshaw drivers stayed home too, upset about private cars and buses and a decision to increase renewal charges for permits. In June last year, around 20,000 rickshaws went off the roads demanding a ban on radio taxis.
A year before that, one union leader demanded a fare hike of 300% for damage caused by driving through water-logged and pothole-ridden roads; the same roads the rest of us struggle through year after year.
Granted, there are things one can criticise private cab operators for — poor background checks, unlicensed employees, unfamiliarity with the city and, as a great definition of irony, their propensity to charge extortionate prices during strikes by the regular taxi unions. And yet, every single one of these criticisms can be directed equally to regular cab or rickshaw drivers. Few of them care about customer safety, most refuse to ply short distances, and the flimsiness of background checks becomes apparent the minute you walk into any Regional Transport Office and find out how easy it is to acquire a licence.
I would like to hazard a guess and point out to the leaders of our unions that most residents of Bombay don't really care about who drives them, be it a cool cab, regular cab, Ola or any new entrant that can help us get a rickshaw using an app. All we want is someone who agrees to ferry us for a reasonable price. And if members of the Taximen's Union won't ply, we're happy to pay anyone and everyone else who will. After all, it's not as if our government is interested in making our buses or trains better.
When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereiraSend your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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