Panel’s guidelines to regulate taxi services sent to states: Centre

The Centre on Monday told the Delhi High Court that a high-level panel set up by it has proposed guidelines for regulating taxi services in the country, which have been sent to the state governments for action.

The submission was made before Justice Manmohan by the ministry of road transport and highways, which had set up the high-level committee to examine issues related to black-and-yellow cabs, radio taxis and appbased aggregators Ola and Uber.

The ministry also said the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2017, was passed by the Lok Sabha on April 10.

Delhi government, represented by senior standing counsel Rahul Mehra, said it cannot take a decision or implement the panel’s guidelines right now as the model code of conduct was in place for the MCD polls. It sought more time to take a decision and to place it before the court.

The court, thereafter, listed the matter for further hearing on August 2 to await the passage of the amendment Bill in Parliament, as well as the decision expected to be taken by the Delhi government to implement the panel’s recommendations.

The court had earlier said that the policy should have minimum interference by the government and market forces should be allowed to operate, as measures to regulate the emerging sector could “bring in corruption”.

The panel’s key recommendations include state governments facilitating unhindered grant of permits for city taxis and All India Tourist Permit cabs without any restriction on numbers.

The suggestions also include online conversion of compliant personal vehicles to commercial taxis on payment of requisite charges to facilitate use of idle assets and tariff of deluxe taxis being determined by market dynamics.