New Delhi: Bike taxi drivers write to LG

New Delhi : More than 1,500 bike taxi drivers have written to Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena demanding that they be given the same timeline for conversion to electric vehicles as their counterparts in delivery services. The letter came a day after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal approved a scheme for the regulation and licensing of aggregators providing passenger transport services and delivery service providers in the national capital.

The scheme also paves the way for bike taxis and mandates that the aggregators should on board electric two-wheelers for passenger services. The file pertaining to the Delhi Motor Vehicle Aggregator and Delivery Service Provider Scheme 2023 has been submitted to the lieutenant governor’s office, according to an official statement.

According to the letter written by the drivers, “The scheme essentially states that only electric bike taxis would be allowed to run in Delhi and bike taxis of other fuel types would become illegal to operate. By notifying the said scheme, the government would stop our only source of income that not only supports me but my entire family.” The letter has also been sent to Kejriwal, BJP MP Gautam Gambhir and Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot.

“This would be a very unfortunate decision as there may be a situation of mass unemployment in a scenario where inflation is already so high and surviving in a metro city has become difficult. For most of us, driving bike taxis is our only source of income to maintain a decent livelihood in these trying times. Even drivers who are dependent on both food delivery and bike taxis are bound to lose half of their income since food delivery is able to employ us only during meal hours,” it added.

While appreciating the Delhi government’s intent to transition to electric vehicles and reduce pollution levels across the city, the drivers underlined that harsh measures like allowing only electric bike taxis to operate will take away their livelihood. “...we request that the policy remains the same for all bikes, if a bike is allowed on the road to undertake commercial work like delivering goods, food, groceries etc, then it should also be allowed as a bike taxi as well. If the argument is to convert to EVs, we request that we be given the same parity and timeline to convert to EVs as has been afforded to the delivery sector,” they said.