Bharat Taxi promises transparent, fixed pricing with no surge charges, in relieving response to umpteen grouses of customers about arbitrary fare hike during peak hours
In the face of the felt need for alternatives to the cab aggregators who began fleecing the customers using the app-based ride service, the Ministry of Cooperation has recently launched the Bharat Taxi Service. Designed as a transformative helpful tool in the mobility segment by placing drivers at the centre of ownership, responsible for and responsive to customers, the new venture rolled out early this month initially in the National Capital Region and Gujarat has plans to expand in a phased manner with pan-India operation by 2029.
To take the initiative a step further, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the first cooperative-based ride-hailing service to provide last-minute connectivity at eleven airports across the country. Operated by Sahakar Taxi Cooperative Limited and promoted by National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), Bharat Taxi operates on a driver-owned cooperative model, unlike conventional ride- hiding platforms.
The new paradigm promises transparent, fixed pricing with no surge charges, in relieving response to umpteen grouses of customers about arbitrary fare hike during peak hours and late-night journeys, particularly from the airports to the cities.
This needs to be set against the question as to whether the entry of private cab aggregators like Ola and Uber a couple of years ago extending a link between the customers and the taxi operators a boon or bane with wanton taxi drivers refusing to change their old habits? This writer learnt the hard way that established habits die hard when he landed in Chennai airport from Delhi.
No one could deny the differences in charges between one hired from home to airport and back from airport to home, because in the latter, the cab operators need to pay a fixed charge to the airport for availing of its facility of parking in designated areas to provide service to the arriving travellers to the city.
At Chennai airport, a free ride with one’s luggage on the e-vehicle to the private cab operators is provided. The pleasantness, despite the trouble of carrying and lifting the luggage into the vehicle, was lost upon alighting at the cab operator counter, because even before one identified the place, a hoard of taxi drivers descended to know where one was proceeding.
When I told the destination and ( the apps of a particular cab operator I chose with the fare indicating Rs 450 between the airport and the Valluwarkottam in Nungambakkam ( a distance of less than 15 km), there was a derisive reaction as they   said that no cabbies including the one I ordered would come at that paltry sum. This proved prescient as the cab operator I called already made his stance clear that unless I pay additional Rs 200 to round it off to Rs 650 to navigate the evening traffic, he would not come!
Ignoring their extortionate demands, I went to the counter and the operator said that the taxi would come for Rs 550 and directed us to go to the second-floor parking slot through the lift! How the Rs 450 our original call elicited, and the Rs 550 now sought at the counter for the same  cab aggregator made only my incomprehension intact! Nor was there any help at hand or any trolley to carry one’s luggage. No sooner was my worry over than the demand for the fare for the journey became not less than Rs 700 by all the drivers in the parking lot, much to my dismay! Obviously, the pretext was the apps’ message did not include the parking cost in Chennai airport!
As it was getting late, I thought it unsafe to persist with the embedded cost originally came on the apps for Rs 450 as even that cab operator
demanded Rs 200 extra charges to pick up. Left with little option but to take one of the operators demanding Rs 700. The ironical takeaway
is that instead of technology facilitating the comfortable use of cabs, one is at the mercy of the cabbies who find no harm or fear in fleecing the customers.
Yet a small comfort I felt was on the return journey when the same cab aggregator at Delhi charged only Rs 700 for 31 km, double the one travelled in Chennai! So, it is obvious that the taxi drivers using the cab aggregator badge in different cities simply game the system, leaving the hapless public clueless to their whimsical professional ethics!
Sadly, technology is misused by greedy taxi drivers with scant qualms for the cab aggregator’s reputation being blown up.  This opens the dubiety as to whether the cab aggregator really has any say over the unruly conduct of the drivers, misusing the brand name and whether the local police and civic authorities would do their bit to assuage the concerns of the public?
It is with this reminiscence of my recent experience, hope is high that Bharat Taxi service would be different to the users to feel that they are in a safe pair of hands when using its service!
(G Srinivasan is a senior economic journalist based in New Delhi.)
