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US-based taxi hailing service, Uber faced yet another prohibition from the Delhi Government after the transport department stopped it from running its services in the capital.
According to government official, the company failed to abide by new rules and therefore were considered unfit to be issued licence. The decision came after it levied a similar ban on Ola, India’s largest cab operator.
“On the request of the taxi firm (to move the hearing date from 19 August), we accepted it, but the company officials did not turn up on the given date (August 24) for hearing. We also asked Uber to submit an affidavit stating that they are complying with the government’s ban imposed on it and other laid-down rules, but it also did not do the same,” a government official said.
Last month, Transport Minister Gopal Rai had released a new set of guidelines under the ‘City Taxi Scheme, 2015’, which included the amendments in Radio Taxi Scheme drafter in 2006 and the Economy Taxi Scheme of 2010. Under this, all vehicles were mandated to provision a panic button, a hooter, digital fare meter, PSV badge and an LCD display on top of the vehicle to indicate Green (available) and Red (occupied) colour. Apart from this, individual and group categories including the aggregators have to comply with the rates notified by Government.
It isn’t the first time; Uber has been prohibited to operate in the city, as the transport department has been in a constant tug-of-war with them. Earlier this month, Ola got a nod from the Delhi High Court to ply in the city if they ran CNG based cars only. Prior to this, the government had urged service providers to file an undertaking that they were dutifully following the imposed ban. Furthermore, in order to see strict implementation of the ban, the transport department, had reached out to the Information and Technology department of Delhi Government, asking to block the mobile apps of three taxi-services.
All the web and app based taxi services including Ola, Uber and TaxiForSure were banned in the city after a Uber driver raped a 27-year-old woman passenger.
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