Mumbai Ola-Uber strike update: Mumbaikars, be ready to shuffle your plans; Cabs to remain off road again

Mumbai Ola-Uber strike update: Ola-Uber cabs will remain off from Mumbai roads today, making regular users of the app-based cabs again face inconvenience. This is not for the first time when Ola and Uber drivers are going on strike. Recently the drivers had withdrawn their strike after 11 days on November 2 after the transport minister gave assurance that their demands would be addressed.

The drivers of Ola and Uber have now decided to again go on a strike from today evening as the demands which were addressed by them are not solved.

Drivers had demanded a hike in fare in line with rising in fuel prices, waiting charges and re-listing of black-listed drivers. These demands were not met, according to a report by DNA.

As in the last protest, there were reports of drivers being manhandled and cabs being damaged for not joining in the agitation. So to avoid the situation, which was created in the last strike, Maharashtra Rajya Rashtriya Kamgar Sangh (MRRKS) has said, "The drivers who do not want to join in the agitation, will be free to take passengers"

Sunil Borkar, secretary MRRKS, said the drivers have decided to not use the firms' apps permanently if their issues were not addressed by November 19. "There shall be an agitation outside Vidhan Bhavan on November 19,"

Further, Borkar said, "We will ask the government to create its own app and use that instead." The union claims that they have the support of 65,000 drivers across Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane. 

Describing the situation of the strike, Senior NCP leader Sachin Ahir, who is also president of MRRKS told DNA, "About 95 per cent of the drivers are with us."

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Drivers claim that the base fare of Uber and OLA is Rs 6 per kilometre, which is too low and leads in operational losses. The rise in fuel prices and higher fares of rival transport services are the main reasons for their loss.

To put this into perspective, the base fare of auto rickshaw was compared as fare of the rickshaw is Rs 18 for the first two kilometres, and Rs 22 for a black-and-yellow taxi, which is higher than OLA and Uber.

This is the reason why the strike extended for 11 days and ended on October 22.

Notably, Mumbai has about 50,000 app-based cabs.