Already in the red, yellow taxis may not survive Covid blues
Delhi is the only state in India with no electricity tariff hike in the past six years
NEW YORK: They were omnipresent on the streets of New York day and night, as emblematic of the Big Apple as the Empire State Building or Yankees caps. But the pandemic has made yellow taxis scarce and facing an uncertain future.
On a February morning in a parking lot near La Guardia Airport, a few dozen of the yellow cabs patiently queue in the freezing cold to catch a fare from one of the terminals.
“This lot used to be full with hundreds of cabs and even a line outside,” says 65-year-old Joey Olivo, recalling the days before coronavirus.
“Now there is only about 50 and you wait two hours, when before you’d wait 20 minutes,” adds Olivo, a taxi driver for three decades.
Widespread working from home, school closures and no tourists means rides have plummeted for Olivo, as they have for all of New York’s cabbies.
“It’s been pretty bad. My earnings dropped 80%. I went from making maybe $1,000 a week to making two or 300 dollars a week,” he told AFP.
Olivo, who lives in Brooklyn, is trying to put a brave face on his situation, joking that he is lucky his wife “makes good money” as a nurse, otherwise “I would have had a rope around my neck.”
‘Free fall’
New York taxi drivers, most of whom are first-generation immigrants, were once able to make $7,000 a month or more if they worked long hours seven days a week.
Competition from Uber, Lyft and other vehicle-for-hire firms had already drastically dented their income, but with the pandemic it is in “free fall,” says Richard Chow, a 62-year-old taxi driver originally from Myanmar.
Chow is not feeling the press as much as most, because he bought his license, called a “medallion” in New York, for $410,000 in 2006.
In the years that followed, medallion prices soared, inflated by a nexus of bankers, investors and lawyers.
In 2009, his younger brother Kenny Chow paid $750,000 for his license. In 2014, the cost of medallion reached $1 million.
The arrival of thousands of new drivers working for Uber and others has caused the medallion bubble to burst and condemned thousands of cabbies who had bought medallions at a high cost on credit to fall into debt or bankruptcy.
Kenny Chow and at least seven other drivers, including of black cars and limousines, committed suicide in 2018, underscoring a dire situation that has been worsened by the pandemic.
“The pandemic has just been devastating,” said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the Taxi Workers Alliance.
“Before the pandemic, ridership had been down by 50%. Since the pandemic, it’s down closer to 90%,” she told AFP.
“The parts of the city that are the most deserted are the parts of Manhattan where drivers depend on in order to earn their living, and the airports,” Desai added.
Hence the scarcity of yellow taxis. Out of some 13,000 licenses, only about 5,000 taxis are running regularly at the moment, according to the union.
Some 7,000 others aren’t even leaving their garages. According to William Pierre, a driver from Haiti, it is no longer profitable.
So could the yellow taxis, which replaced checkeredstriped cabs in the 1960s, actually disappear?
Olivo and Pierre believe business will pick up eventually, even though they agree it will never be the same again. Desai fears yellow cabs “will slowly phase out” if the city government does not erase drivers’ debts.
The Delhi government's free-electricity scheme is an example of ‘smart governance’ as it is encouraging Delhiites to reduce their power consumption. In August, the
Delhi government had announced free-electricity of up to 200 units for domestic consumers and later extended the scheme to tenants residing in the national capital. In December 2020, 38 lakh consumers received Zero Bills for consumption under 200 units. This last one year has been a very tough year, especially in terms of the financial condition of the government. Significantly, despite all the limitations, the Delhi government has maintained all the development schemes for the citizens of
Delhi. Lakhs of consumers have received the benefit of zero electricity bill when the pandemic wreaked havoc in their lives, thousands and thousands of people lost their jobs and suffered a lot. Delhi has total of 51,98,533 consumers and 73.54% of these consumers received zero bills which is around 38,23,232. Talking to Twitter, CM Arvind Kejriwal said that residents of the city were trying to consume less than 200 units of electricity to avail the benefit. Under the scheme, people consuming electricity between 201 units and 400 units are eligible to avail up to Rs 800 per month subsidy from the government on their bills. The Delhi government had also announced ‘Mukhyamantri Kirayedar Bijli Meter Yojana' under which tenants can also avail the free-electricity scheme. Delhi is the only state in India with no tariff hike in energy charges for domestic consumers
Under the scheme, people consuming electricity between 201 units and 400 units are eligible to avail upto Rs 800 per month subsidy from the government on their bills
In the last one year, the Delhi government has given an immense focus on the solar power infrastructure. This has the potential to generate a lot of clean electricity
since the past 6 years - Delhi has the most progressive tariff structure, rewarding low electricity consumption by providing big subsidies. The Delhi government has also drastically improved the power infrastructure of Delhi which has helped to bring down power cuts. The Delhi government has also tried to develop the infrastructure of alternative sources of generating electricity. In the last one year, the Delhi government has given an immense focus on the solar power infrastructure. The solar power system not only has the potential to generate a lot of electricity but also this is absolutely environment friendly. The Delhi government has developed and installed over 13 megawatts (MW) of solar rooftop plants across 150 Delhi government schools during last one year. These are expected to save about Rs 5 crores on electricity bills cumulatively each year, apart from earning Rs 6 crores from selling power.