Policy for app-based cab services by month-end: Diwakar Raote

A policy for mobile application-based taxi services like Uber, Ola, and Taxi For Sure, is likely to be announced by the end of this month. Even the draft Maharashtra Mechanically Propelled Vehicles and Road Safety Act, 2015, will have mandatory registration of such services.

Minister for Transport Diwakar Raote informed media persons that the set of rules is ready and has come to transport secretary. He added that the final decision will be taken on the rules in the next 15 days. He also said that no such taxi services would be allowed in the state unless they fulfil all the requirements.

Raote said that the issue of safety of women passengers had come to the fore after the alleged rape by an Uber taxi driver in New Delhi in December 2014. Keeping that in mind, the new set of rules will make it mandatory to have a software-based SOS button as well as safety alarm in the cab, he added, while confirming, "Registration of drivers along with their detailed police record will be kept with the department before giving permission for plying the cabs in state."

Reservation for women
Minister for Transport Diwakar Raote said that his department would be making it mandatory to keep 10 to 15 seats reserved for women passengers in the state transport Shivneri buses. "I have approached union minister Nitin Gadkari for excluding ST buses from highway tolls and have also written to the IRB, the Mumbai-Pune Expressway toll operator, to exempt ST buses from having to pay toll," Raote said, adding, at present, state transport saves Rs82 crore out of total toll toll tax of Rs138 crore. He made it clear that it was not going to reduce the fare as the toll tax expenditure had not been passed on to the consumer.