DNA Micro Edit: Cab strike: Common man is at the receiving end

It was again the common man left to bear the brunt as authorities and cab operators failed to reach a consensus on demands made by latter.

While the impact of strike this time round was not as profound, nevertheless, commuters ended up being harassed as both these app based operators and autowalas arm twisted them into paying through their nose, sheer wastage of precious time not calculating.

The cab services are having a free run in absence of any clear mandate or guidelines governing the fares they charge and their workforce. Time and again, the government has scuttled from fixing a nominal base fare, putting the onus on courts and the operators to arrive at a conjunction.

At the same time, there is no cap on surge pricing, which is a valid form of earning the extra buck for these cab services. The harassment is not limited to the end users of cabs but the employees too are facing the high handedness of operators (one of reasons of Tuesday's strike).

The drivers rue that they are 'forced'to pay 20 per cent of their daily earnings to Ola and Uber. They also crib about how the companies tricked them into becoming part of the venture, promising them big profits and are now shying away with paying them the rates decided earlier, hence turning the vocation into a loss proposition for them. In toto, the only one profiting from the situation are the cab companies who are digging gold with both hands.