Indore: Bike-taxis run illegally in city, auto-rickshaw bodies to stage protest today

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Protesting against the illegal operation of app-based bike taxis, auto-rickshaw drivers will stage a demonstration at the Cyber Cell police station on Monday. President of the Indore Auto-Rickshaw Drivers’ Union Rajesh Bidkar said that about 4,000 bike-taxis we're running across the city illegally. “The Regional Transport Office has already suspended the licence of one of the aggregators, while no renewal was given to the other aggregators. With this, there’s no legal bike-taxi operator in the city, but still thousands of vehicles are running in the city,” Bidkar said.

He alleged that the bike-taxi operators were using private vehicles for commercial use while many of the riders do not have police verification done and criminal cases have been registered against many of them. “We’ve been lodging complaints against the illegal operation of bike-taxis for a long time, but no action has been taken by the police or the RTO yet. Because of this, we’ll start a series of protests on the issue,” Bidkar said.

Meanwhile, RTO Pradeep Sharma said there was no legal bike-taxi service provider in the city and those running were illegal. “We seized many of the illegal bike-taxis, but we can’t catch each of them. We’re also writing to the police to take action against illegal operation of bike-taxis,” Sharma said.