Bengaluru: The Karnataka Government on Saturday announced a ban on carpooling in the state's capital city Bengaluru, and advised passengers to refrain from using carpooling apps, keeping in mind the complaints raised by taxi driver associations.
The move comes amid perpetual complaints by the residents about the Bengaluru traffic, unavailability of cabs, and high fares for short distances.
The transport department of Karnataka termed using whiteboard vehicles for commercial commute purposes as ‘illegal’ and warned that anyone found operating the carpooling services may face a fine ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000.
Ride-hailing apps like BlaBla Car, Quickride, Rideshare, Commute Easy, and Carpool Adda have been running carpool services for those who want to share their ride with others for affordable and available rides.
Carpooling was considered as one of the factors to reduce the number of vehicles on Bengaluru roads during peak hours and many IT employees use these services to commute to work from their homes.
However, the taxi associations said that the carpooling services are affecting their daily earnings and submitted a demand to the government to take action against them.
Earlier, the taxi associations had demanded that bike taxis be banned in Bengaluru.
The taxi associations and the autorickshaw drivers' union recently conducted a Bengaluru bandh and submitted a list of demands to Karnataka transport minister Ramalinga Reddy.
Bengaluru has the highest traffic density for any major city in the country. A city with a population of 11 million, it has close to 12.5 million vehicles, which means a vehicle for every person living in the city.
The recent traffic gridlock has left many commuters on roads for hours on Bengaluru’s Outer Ring Road, which houses many IT parks and global investments.
The decision to ban carpooling left netizens fuming. Many tweeted aggressively asking how this ban would benefit the commuters.
"Would this lead to more vehicles, more pollution," said an X user. "Won't it increase the traffic?", another tweeted.
"Catering to taxi and auto wala vote banks," said a user reacting to the RTO decision. "This is because of extensive lobbying by the Taxi unions," said another.
“Cauvery or Carpooling, political will should be prioritized, not political compromise." said another X user.