For any product or service, the manufacturer decides a price and publishes it. If this price is revised upwards, just because the demand is more, it could be termed as black-marketing. Movie tickets, cars etc. all have waiting list at times but their price remains same. In case of flights too, government intervenes if the prices are overshot by the airlines to alarming levels. Lastly, there is no mechanism to know in case of taxi aggregators of what the real demand and supply gap actually is.
For any product or service, the manufacturer decides a price and publishes it. If this price is revised upwards, just because the demand is more, it could be termed as black-marketing. Movie tickets, cars etc. all have waiting list at times but their price remains same. In case of flights too, government intervenes if the prices are overshot by the airlines to alarming levels. Lastly, there is no mechanism to know in case of taxi aggregators of what the real demand and supply gap actually is.
If you don't cut their tails down now itself, they will start controlling the entire India's economics one fine day, that much dangerous these ill-minded people are
This ban is required, they have started charging heavily and creating unnecessary hype, when the are ready to arrange the vehicle with in 1 or 2 minutes where is the High demand!! they are charging sometime up to 3 times more than the actual charges and they are not paying this money to the Driver, easy money, customers (AAM ADMI) are suffer. This is the best thing govt has done, otherwise there so limit for these people.
Yes.. At the face of it, it seems that the author of the article has more knowledge in economics than the CM but then this whole problem has to be looked at a more holistic manner. The author of this article might have taken the basic economics course-101 but then does he know the intricacies involved in administration or to put it in his lines Has he done the basic Administration course Public Admin-101 ??
The concept of matching supply and demand is well and good but how do we know whats the demand/supply ? Where is the transparency ? Are we aware how many vehicles are there on the road and how many commuters demanding it ? Without this information, the companies may charge higher prices whenever they want to by giving this excuse of matching supply and demand.
The economics and market determinant, market driven prices are very good to lecture however when it comes to putting into action, the exploitation starts. I am not totally against surge pricing but every thing needs a cap. During off peak time, providing such services any body could do. If you look into the rates charged, it has three components one the basic start price, per km pricing and then per minutes charges. During peak time the additional cost is factored in terms of number of minutes driven. when this is factored where is the need for surge pricing. Further all these company have already segregated various vehicles in terms micro, mini, prime, share etc etc and pricing is also based on such segregation. When that be the case there is no justification for surge pricing across. This is pure exploitation. Let there be a cap on the surge pricing say 1.25 times which should apply to all. Charging 3X and 4X is absolute looting and needs to controlled and rightly done by the government. Take the case of railways who have brought in the classification of tatkal and premium tatkal wherein the percentage of seats are identified towards last minute rush with higher pricing. Let them follow such procedure. Common man also needs to be services at normal price even during peak time.
I used Ola and Uber for about 4 months in Bangalore. My office timings were not the normal 9-6 and I got cabs for less than auto fares on most days. During this time I spoke to a lot of drivers. And I found out that surge pricing does not increase the amount paid to the driver and so it does not increase the number of taxis immediately. All that increase is pocketed by Uber/Ola. This is partly used to incentivise the amount paid during other hours by users. Then there were the days when I came across surge pricing even when lots of cabs were waiting at just a minute away and I realised that these companies were artificially increasing the prices to suit themselves... there was no economics. May be this is not how it works in other countries but in India where regulations are lax and legal recourse is time consuming these companies started fleecing customers. It is time to put them in their place. If not banning then at least regulation needs to come in. But regulation means the Government needs to understand the business in-depth... which will not be easy given the lack of transparency.
