Maharashtra's Transport Minister, Pratap Baburao Sarnaik, on Wednesday, caught a Rapido bike taxi operating illegally in Mumbai and exposed the discrepancies in official information provided by the Transport Department.
Posting the whole incident on his X handle, the minister said he received an ‘official’ assurance from a senior transport department official that bike taxis were not operating illegally in the city. But to verify the claim, he carried out a check himself.
He selected a route from Mantralaya to Dadar. The app showed a fare of Rs 195. Within minutes, a Rapido rider arrived to pick him up, after which, Sarnaik revealed his identity, “I am the Transport Minister.”
“These rules are made for your safety,” he told the rider, who was clearly taken by surprise. As a gesture of goodwill, Sarnaik offered the rider Rs 500, saying, “You came here, that’s why I’m giving you this.”
No action was taken against the rider. Sarnaik made it clear that the government’s intention wasn’t to punish poor workers, but rather to take action against the companies enabling these illegal services. “We won’t gain anything by filing a case against a poor person like you. But the people behind the illegal operation should be punished,” he said.
Notably, the Maharashtra government has not yet granted official permission to any app-based bike taxi aggregator. Under the newly introduced e-bike policy, companies are only allowed to run services in cities with populations over one lakh if they meet specific regulatory conditions. However, those rules have not yet been officially notified, which technically makes all such operations illegal for now, Hindustan Times reported.
Last month, the Maharashtra Transport Commissioner's office lodged a First Information Report (FIR) against Rapido and Uber companies at Azad Maidan police station for allegedly operating bike taxis illegally, according to a report by NDTV.
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