All Assam Cab Mazdoor Sangha general secretary Jyotish Deka speaking to the press on Monday

GUWAHATI:

Altogether 18,000 CAB operators will stop providing Ola and Uber services to the people of Northeast from February 1.

However, services will be available for passengers with two local apps- Pei India and AM2.

At the same time, more than 16,000 Rapido bike riders will also stop operators from February 1 in Guwahati city.

The All Assam Cab Mazdoor Sangha will close down the services of Uber, Ola and Rapido’s bike services from February 1 in protest against continuous harassment of cab drivers by the cab aggregators. However, cab services will be available through two local cab operators- Pei India and AM2,” All Assam Cab Mazdoor Sangha general secretary Jyotish Deka said.

“Ola and Uber started operations in Assam in 2015. In the first year, they gave us good incentives. But in later days they started harassment of cab drivers. They started taking 40 to 60 per cent of the commission from cab drivers per trip. This is not reasonable,” Deka said.

“They are also taking the dynamic price from us. If we pay such a commission, nothing is left for us. We work for 18-20 hours. We have to pay instalments in the banks and finance companies for loans against vehicles and maintain our family also,” Deka also said.

“Under the Motor Vehicle Aggtergayot Guideline2020, health insurance and provident fund are to be provided to the cab drivers. But they are not implementing this clause. We also demand security for the cab drivers on duty,” Deka further said.

“At the same time they also started closing the accounts of cab drivers without assigning any reason for it,” he said.

“We have submitted representations to the transport minister, transport commissioner and deputy commissioner on many occasions. But there was no response from them,” he also said.

Simultaneously, All Guwahati Bike Taxi Operators Union has also decided to boycott all Rapido bike services from February 1.

More than 16,000 Rapido bike services will be discontinued due to this call.