Increased ola-uber fares pinch delhi commuters

Many Delhiites have started complaining that app-based cab aggregators like Ola and Uber have been increasing their fares randomly and this has made the once affordable services go beyond their “limits of affordability”.

“These app-based cab aggregators were once a blessing for us, but now they have gone beyond our affordability. The rates per km in normal UberGo or Ola Micro rides have increased up to Rs 15-18 per km. As students, we cannot afford to pay so much,” a second year student of Delhi University said. Rakesh Singh, a businessman in Delhi, said: “When they were launched, these cabs were even cheaper than an auto rickshaw ride, but now that they have made their customer base, they have increased their fares at random.” Some citizens have also raised concerns over the manner in which “dynamic” pricing is determined by these app-based cab aggregators, maintaining that these companies “lack” any transparency in the matter. “Cab companies like Ola and Uber have the concept of dynamic pricing, but how they determine the ‘dynamism’ is known only to them. That is perhaps one of their ways to charge extra from their customers,” Rahul Chawla, a resident of Delhi, said. The fares of Ola and Uber have gone up as high as from Rs18 per km to sometimes Rs 20 per km for a small UberGo or Ola Micro ride in the city. Even the shared or pool rides of these cabbased companies have been experiencing exponential rise in the cost of travel. However, an Uber spokesperson said that the company has been operating under the prescribed rates of the Delhi government, which is somewhere between Rs 20-21 per km. “However, within this limit, we are free to charge as much we can, depending upon the availability of the cabs.” The spokesperson also added that “dynamic pricing” is decided by an algorithm and the company has no manual control over it. An official from Ola said that the Rs 6 per km fare announced by Ola is just like an airline announcing its ticket sale for Re 1. “The Rs 6 per km fare is not the actual fare; customers need to pay the base fare along with the fare for their travel time and taxes,” the official said. Major pharmacists and chemists’ organisations praise the efforts made by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MOHFW) to make medicines cheaper for the people, but argue that the model of AMRIT pharmacies needs key changes in terms of what medicines and implants they are selling at discounted prices, where these pharmacies are being set up and whether mandating generic medicines is in the best interest of patients.

The chemists’ organisations argue that only those medicines that are expensive should be made cheaper instead of generic medicines that are already available in the market at affordable prices. Explaining the reason for discontent among pharmacists, Abhay Kumar, president, Indian Pharmacist Association, told The Sunday Guardian, “We admire the intention of the government to make medicines cheaper. But not all medicines are required to be made cheaper than they already are. There are no such discounts for clothes or any other generic product that are used by the masses.