 "Uber bikes in Bengaluru face legal hurdle again")
Gurgaon is now the only place where Uber is offering this service. However, it said it was hopeful of growing in this category. The company, which had switched from motorcycle taxi hailing to a ridesharing model, found itself in a hot soup when local authorities began impounding the bikes operating on its platform.
“We have received tremendous response from drivers and riders in Bengaluru to our UberMOTO pilot. We will share our learnings with the government and work closely with them to create progressive, technology-friendly regulatory framework,” said an Uber India spokesperson.
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While the state transport department maintains that it will not allow motorcycle taxis to ply on city roads until aggregators such as Uber and Ola have the necessary permits from the Road Transport Authority (RTA) in the form of a yellow board on bikes and badges for riders, it is currently working on a set of rules for motorcycle taxis.
Karnataka state transport department officials were not available for comment at the time of filing this story.
The first draft of rules for motorcycle taxis will be released in four weeks, which will be on similar lines of the Karnataka On-demand Transportation Technology Aggregators Rules 2016, which the state put in place recently.
On April 29, the transport department had seized cabs plying on Uber and Ola platforms on the premise that they were operating without licence. Both firms countered the allegation saying that they had applied for licences but were denied on technical grounds.
Karnataka, which has put a cap on fares of taxis in order to curb surge pricing, has demanded taxis be fitted with digital meters and boards on roofs of taxis that light up when the cab is free. Both Uber and Ola had voiced their opposition to several of the state government’s demands, but the state isn’t willing to relent.