Bike taxis sans permit under the scanner as drive takes shape

After the High Court of Karnataka lifted the ban on bike taxis, the application based services have continued operating in the city to the benefit of commuters and the soft ware companies. How ever, a new hurdle has presented itself with the transport department beginning its crackdown on illegally operating bike taxis. The action was taken after the Karnataka App based Workers Union met with the department and stated that they would go on strike if no action was taken.

“The crackdown is a response to years of un checked exploitation of gig and platform work ers. Despite repeated representations to governments and platform companies, there has been no meaningful ac tion. Workers can no lon ger survive on the current earnings. Our action is to demand fair regulation, legal accountability and dignified working condi tions for all app-based transport and delivery workers,” said co-found er and National General Secretary, IFAT, Shaik Salauddin.

According to the Transport Department Commissioner, the im pact on either the appli cations or the commut ers was not of concern, and only the bike taxis being in line with the laws is. “There is a motor vehicles act and according to that the commercial vehicles have to obtain permissions and requisite documents. Many of these bike taxis don’t have the paperwork and they are just misguiding people. I can't tell you about the impact that it will have, people will al ways complain about such things,” Transport Department Commis sioner Dr. Selvamani R. said.

The traffic police how ever, will not be enforcing the drive and it will be handled by officials of the Transport Depart ment alone. Transport Depart ment officials stated on Wednesday that they had seized over 250 ve hicles which were being used commercially as bike taxis. While commuters said they were worried about the drive, they didn’t report any stoppage of services or difficulties with the service. For the gig workers, they emphasized bet ter policies to come out of the drive. “We expect both the government and platform compa nies to take immediate, concrete action. This includes Notification of minimum base fares and fair per-kilometre and per-minute rates under the Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines, 2025.