With the drivers of Ola and Uber remaining on strike for the fourth day on Monday, almost 95% of such cabs remained off the roads in Delhi-NCR, leading to the volume of business of the two cab aggregators dropping by as much as 90%. The drivers are protesting the reduction in incentives and commissions paid to them by the cab aggregator firms.

Till Monday evening, there weren’t any cab available across the four categories including Share, Micro, Mini, Prime to book via Ola Cabs’ app. While Uber, which is allowing commuters to book a cab, is following a 1.8-3 times surge pricing as its fleet has got drastically shrunk. For example, before the strike, on a regular day Uber charged commuters about R300 for a UberGo trip from Noida to Connaught Place at 6:30 pm. But on Monday at 6:30 pm, the company was charging Rs 539.67 for the same trip — about 1.8 times higher than the regular price.
E-mails sent to both Uber and Ola did not elicit a response till the time of going to press.

Taxi drivers’ association such like the Sarvodaya Driver Association of Delhi (SDAD), which claims to represent 1.5 lakh drivers in Delhi-NCR, said in total about 2 lakh taxis ply under Ola and Uber.  “Of the 2 lakh cars, about 50,000 taxi are owned by the companies, while the rest 1.5 lakh belong to independent drivers. Moreover, of the 1.50 lakh taxis, about 30,000 are registered in Delhi, while remaining are registered in UP, Haryana and other adjoining states,” said Ravi Rathore, vice-president of SDAD.

Manoj Kumar Verma, a driver who works for both Ola and Uber, said, “Earlier the incentives used to be trip-based. For example, on clocking 10 trips a day, companies would give me R2,000 as incentive over and above of what I earned from the trip. However, it’s now fare-based. Under current scheme, Ola gives incentives on the basis of net earnings.”

Verma added that under the new scheme Ola gives an incentive of Rs 1,200 on net earning of Rs 700. “So if I generate business of R1,000, after deducting service tax and commission paid to Ola, my net earning is Rs 700. On that I am supposed to get Rs 1,200 as incentive. But I only get Rs 960, as Ola deducts its commission of 20%.” he said.

Uber follows Lakshya incentives — it pays an incentive to drivers on net earnings he makes per trip.