Bike taxis seek time till 2025-26 for electric vehicle transition

Bike taxis operators, who were banned by the Delhi government this week, have approached the latter with a compromise solution, requesting the state to allow them to continue to operate while allowing them the time to convert their vehicles to electric by 2025-26. 

It has, however, asked for a level playing field when it comes to the timeline for conversion to electric between white label (for private use) bike drivers who use their vehicles for ride-hailing and those who use it for last-mile delivery of e- commerce products (for companies like Zomato, Flipkart, Amazon etc). Talks are on with Delhi government officials to come up with a solution.  

Says a top executive of a leading aggregator, “The latest draft rules governing aggregators in Delhi have created a huge non level playing field. If the goal is to reduce pollution and congestion in Delhi, the guidelines are very unfair, since they have been made stringent only for ride-hailing aggregators ” Under the latest draft rules of the Delhi government, those running a two-wheeler bike hailing service have to make sure that any vehicle being boarded as part of the fleet from the date of commencement of the scheme is electric. Moreover, the aggregator must convert 100 per cent of its bike fleet to electric by the end of the second year of the notification. 

However, for bikes working with last-mile delivery companies, their entire fleet are allowed to be converted by April 1 2030. The rules are relaxed in their case also for new bikes being onboarded  — only 25 per cent of the new fleet to be converted to electric in 9 months, 50 per cent in one year and 100 per cent in three years.  Aggregators argue that if the drivers offering ride-hailing services are forced to convert to EVs, they will simply go and work for e-commerce and food delivery companies, ensuring the death knell of this segment.

The Delhi government has said that the two-wheelers with private registration numbers are being used to carry passengers on hire, which is a purely commercial operation and violative of the Motor Vehicles Act 1988. The move has impacted ride-hailing aggregators such as Rapido, Uber, Ola, amongst others. However, bike taxi-hailing aggregators point out that under Section 15 of the 2020 central guidelines for aggregators, the government has permitted white plate vehicles (those solely used for private purposes) to operate commercially provided they are part of an aggregator service. So the government’s argument is fallacious.  

So how big is the bike taxi business? Aggregators estimate that 10-12 million trips are undertaken by them every week across the country. Bike taxis are particularly popular in cities like Delhi, which account for nearly a fourth of all trips. They are an affordable mode of transportation for first-mile and last-mile use-cases, and are commonly hailed by the youth and blue-collar workers who find autos and cabs too expensive. Their cost of operation is at least 30 per cent lower than that of an auto. There are over 500,000 bike taxi drivers in the country, out of which 120,000 active drivers are based in Delhi. 

The total number of registered drivers would be even larger — about double the number of active drivers.

A long ride

• Bike taxis do 10-12 million rides a week; one-fourth of these are in Delhi
• There are 500,000 drivers offering bike taxi ride-hailing services 
• The cost of operating a bike taxi is 30% cheaper than an auto
• Aggregators say Delhi has made stringent rules for bike taxis in the ride-hailing segment to convert to electric 
• The 2020 central guidelines permitted the use of white label vehicles (private) for commercial purposes. So, aggregators argue that there is no violation of the MV Act