Uber Cars Attacked in Maharashtra; Drivers Staying Offline

Taxi aggregator Uber has been focusing on growth in India, and in July, announced a $1 billion investment to expand its operations in the country beyond the metros. But the process has not been without problems, and in June, taxi and auto services in Mumbai went on strike to protest Uber's operations in the city.

Now, the dissatisfaction of these transport providers who feel threatened by the global giant seems to have reached a worrying level, as taxis plying for Uber have been attacked in Mumbai and Pune, according to a report. A statement from Uber says that the violence is politically motivated, and threats are forcing Uber's drivers off the roads. From Uber's statement, issued on Thursday:

Recently, a few politically motivated groups have publicly threatened to shut down aggregator services. They have called for city-wide strikes and resorted to violence, holding our Uber Mumbai and Pune driver partners to ransom by assaulting drivers, damaging cars, and forcibly taking away company-owned equipment (mobile phones).

Out of fear, thousands of drivers have been forced to stay off the roads, leaving commuters who rely on Uber and such services for their daily travel stranded while depriving honest driver-partners of their earnings.

There is pressure to enforce a rule that would allow the issuance of a Public Service Vehicle badge to only those applicants who:

1. Have lived in the state of Maharashtra for more than 15 years and;

2. Can read and write in Marathi.

These requirements seem highly unreasonable, but there are those who see this violence as a natural result of the online world squeezing out offline operators. It echoes the issue we're seeing in the retail space, as family stores shut down to become sellers on e-commerce marketplaces. Despite this though, we've not heard of many cases of people beating up e-commerce deliverymen and destroying their packages. The cabs that sign up for Uber are independent operators, who own their own taxis. Breaking the windows and otherwise damaging these cabs doesn't hurt Uber - except by temporarily making its fleet a little bit smaller - but it can destroy the livelihood of the drivers.

That Uber and Ola and other taxi aggregators require regulation and a level playing field with other transportation companies is clear enough; the rallying cry of being just a tech company is frankly misleading. But there's no sense in complaining about just one company when it affects your profit margins. Innovation should be welcomed, but it should also be properly regulated, with no exceptions.