Union leader Shashank Rao, who heads the 83, 000 member Mumbai Autorickshaw and Taxi Union (MATU) has hinted that autorickshaw drivers might stay off the streets on February 15, because of unfulfilled
Union leader Shashank Rao, who heads the 83, 000 member Mumbai Autorickshaw and Taxi Union (MATU) has hinted that autorickshaw drivers might stay off the streets on February 15, because of unfulfilled demands by the state government pending for almost a year.
Mr Rao, who took over the reins from his father Sharad Rao more than a year ago, was speaking to the media on Monday at the Marathi Patrakar Sangh. Mr Rao said the draft rules, which were to bring application-based taxi aggregators like Uber and Ola under the ambit of the transport ministry had been promised to the union as far back as June of last year.
“The then transport commissioner had met with all of us and then with the heads of companies like Ola and Uber in Bandra and had promised us the drafting rules will be made ready and implemented by the December 2015. But this hasn’t happened and these taxi services are running rampant in the city and don’t have to pay any kind of service related taxes like permits and have not registered with the RTO as a commercial vehicles which entails taxes,” he said.
The union has also demanded that one lakh fresh permits be issued by the transport commissioner office and stop recycling dead permits to fresh drivers.
