Karnataka: Cab sharing services temporarily banned

Karnataka government's transport department has put a temporary ban on cab sharing services like UberPool and OlaShare, claiming that such services violate the existing permit and transport laws. The department has also mentioned that the said services will be resumed once the Union and State government make appropriate amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act.

The state transport department has claimed that as per the current Motor Vehicles Act, cabs are not allowed to offer services with multiple pick-up and drop points. That means a cab should not pick-up passengers from different points and then drop them at different destinations, during a single trip. However, the department hasn't banned operators from picking up and dropping off more than one passenger between two fixed points.

Understanding the limitations of the Motor Vehicles Act currently enforced, cab aggregators like Uber and Ola have asked for a window of 3 days to change their platform's software in order to stop offering such services. The transport department has thus given a deadline till Friday, February 3, 2017 to stop offering these cab pooling services.

Source: ET Auto