Marathis don’t want to work as drivers: Rajesh Puri

The first mover also has his disadvantages. Meru—the AC fleet cab service—is learning it the hard way, as it is faced with a Shiv Sena-led agitation of a few drivers which also led to disruption of its services on the day railway motormen also struck work. Rajesh Puri, Meru’s chief executive officer, spoke to DNA to explain the company policy, and dwelt at length on the future of public transport in Mumbai.

Meru could not deliver on the day of the motormen strike. That almost paralysed the city
It was a pure coincidence that both the motormen strike and the disruption of work by a handful of former Meru drivers happened on the same day (May 4). It was also probably a coincidence that both were supported by the Shiv Sena. These drivers were demanding weekly offs, offs on public holidays and more annual holidays. But those who are leading them fail to understand that this is not an employer-employee model.

Our drivers are our business partners and we have signed business contracts with them. They give us a rent of Rs800 a day and the taxis are with them, and we get them customers. We discourage them from driving beyond 12 hours because of the fatigue factor. The agitating drivers include mostly those removed from service because of a large number of customer complaints against them and their contracts not renewed. Demands include bringing down the daily rentals from Rs800 to Rs500 — if we accept it, we might as well shut shop. 

You run your services in four cities. How is it different in Mumbai?   
Most drivers in other cities— Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad—are locals. But, here 60% are from Uttar Pradesh or Bihar; 40% are Maharashtrians. We have been trying to rope in many Maharashtrian drivers from other parts of the state, and also from Mumbai. Unfortunately, the trend is that they do not want to work as drivers because they don’t see it as respected among their community as a white-collar job in a factory. But, now we are going to places like Beed, Aurangabad and Nashik soliciting people to join us as drivers. There is a major earning and employment opportunity here.

As a reliable public transport, where does it stand vis-à-vis the yellow-and-black cabs and autorickshaws?
We have presently 1,800 cabs in Mumbai (a fleet of 5,000 cabs in all the four cities of operation). We are growing at a rate of 10% per month, with a year-end revenue of close to Rs200 crore. We are still loss-making and we hope to break even by this year end. As the yellow-and-black cabs are phased out after plying for 25 years as per rules, they will reduce from the current 40,000 to 20,000 in a few years. Metro rail would only help in encouraging quality service like ours. If you see Delhi, in spite of the metro arriving, our business there is good. In fact, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dixit has said that she wants to reduce the number of autorickshaws by half.

What is the USP you are offering a city like Mumbai that has always boasted of a robust public transport system?
We offer reliability, quality and clean cabs, well-mannered and groomed drivers. Ours is a technology-driven back-end operation, we have the best IT support which comes from Italy and used the world over. If you are travelling alone and want to feel totally secure, we offer a service where our technological support will track your entire journey from the call centre. And, we are constantly evolving ourselves, we go on study tours to Tokyo, Singapore, New York which have excellent radio taxi services.