Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Saturday formally launched ‘Bharat Taxi’, a taxi service based on cooperative model, in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. During this, he said that the purpose of this initiative of the government is to protect both taxi drivers and customers from exploitation, as well as to provide respect and ownership rights to the drivers.
Amit Shah said that the main objective of launching ‘Bharat Taxi’ is to ensure that the ‘Sarathi’ (driver) providing the service and the customer are not exploited. Instead of relying on registration on private apps, this model gives ownership to drivers through a cooperative structure, he said.
He expressed pride in the fact that approximately 7 lakh partners associated with ‘Bharat Taxi’ are its owners and shareholders. According to him, this ownership right is not only a guarantee of economic participation but also respect, security and prosperity. The concept of ‘Bharat Taxi’ was prepared with this thinking in mind.
Claim of successful trials at many places
The Union Minister said that this service has been successfully tested in many places and now it has been formally launched in Gujarat. He announced that ‘Bharat Taxi’ service has started in all major cities of the state from today. He claimed that the new cooperative taxi service will have options like two-wheeler taxi, auto-rickshaw and four-wheeler cab.
Regarding existing app-based taxi companies, Amit Shah alleged that they charge excessive fees from drivers, delay payments and close their accounts without any concrete reason. He said that in this situation, ‘Bharat Taxi’ will emerge as a strong option for the passengers.
Agreements with multiple organizations
Shah also mentioned the success of Amul Cooperative Initiative in the dairy sector. On this occasion, Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) were signed with various organizations such as Gujarat Metro Rail Corporation, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Gujarat State Cooperative Bank, State Traffic Police and major airport and railway authorities for the successful implementation of ‘Bharat Taxi’.
What will be the benefit to the drivers?
The government believes that this will prove to be an important step towards increasing the income of drivers, providing them better social security and providing transparent and reliable transport services to passengers. ‘Bharat Taxi’ is being seen as a new experiment in a cooperative-based transport system, which aims to provide an ownership platform to drivers as an alternative to the private aggregator model.
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