According to Adarsh Auto and Taxi Drivers' Union president M Manjunath, over 2 lakh autorickshaws will remain off the roads.
The autorickshaw drivers will also take out a march from the Bengaluru City Railway Station to the chief minister's house. (Creative Commons)
Autorickshaw drivers in Bengaluru will go on strike on Monday, 20 March, in protest against private bike taxi aggregators functioning in the city.
According to Adarsh Auto and Taxi Drivers’ Union president M Manjunath, over 2 lakh autorickshaws will remain off the roads starting from Sunday midnight to Monday midnight.
The union is one of the largest union autorickshaw drivers in Karnataka’s state capital.
The autorickshaw drivers will also take out a march from the Bengaluru City Railway Station to the chief minister’s house.
“We will observe a 24-hour strike starting from Sunday midnight. Our agitation is against the illegal operation of bike taxis operating in the city,” Manjunath told PTI.
He claimed the state transport department viewed bike taxis as illegal but yet the drivers are operating on the city roads with impunity.
Manjunath also said 21 autorickshaw drivers’ associations have come together against the bike taxis.
Recently, a video had gone viral of an autorickshaw driver smashing a bike taxi driver’s mobile phone at a major intersection in the city over the alleged illegal use of such services.
Autorickshaw drivers and bike taxis have been competing for space on Bengaluru’s roads to gain customers.
Earlier, the recruitment process of the bike taxi aggregators came under the scanner of the Karnataka government after a 22-year-old freelance web designer was allegedly raped by a bike-taxi rider and his associate in Bengaluru in November last year.
It was alleged that the bike taxi aggregators were not verifying the background of their drivers, since the driver involved in the case was an accused in another similar case.
The Karnataka Transport Department, meanwhile, has said that bike taxis are illegal in the state.
Karnataka has a bike-taxi scheme, which allows electric two-wheelers as taxis. However, most bike taxis in Bengaluru are petrol-powered private vehicles.
“What is happening is illegal, and we are constantly conducting drives [against it],” a senior Transport Department official told South First back then.
“Once we confirm that a bike is being operated as a taxi, we seize the vehicle and send a show-cause notice to the registered owner. The owner will have to pay a penalty and the vehicle’s registration certificate will be suspended for a period of time as decided by the regional transport officer,” he added.
The aggregators approached the high court after the transport department started cracking down on captains.
(With PTI inputs)
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