Gandhinagar, June 27 (IANS) Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said that ‘Bharat Taxi’ was conceived to eliminate the exploitation of both taxi operators and passengers, arguing that the cooperative model offered a structural alternative to existing app-based platforms.

Speaking at the Gujarat launch of Bharat Taxi, HM Shah said complaints from drivers and commuters over several years prompted discussions on how the government could address problems within the sector. “For their own profits, they exploited countless Sarathis and citizens using taxis,” he said.

The Home Minister alleged that drivers frequently faced arbitrary deductions and penalties. “Sometimes they deducted commissions from the driver’s earnings. Sometimes the earnings or fares did not reach them for several days. Suddenly, they would suspend registrations without any hearing. If any customer complained, they would cancel the Sarathi’s registration without even listening to him,” he claimed.

He said interactions with drivers and members of the public convinced him that legislative intervention alone would not completely resolve such issues.

“I met many members of the public and many Sarathis. Then the thought arose about what kind of law the government should make. But laws do not always provide a 100 per cent solution to problems,” HM Shah said.

Instead, he said, the idea emerged of establishing a cooperative taxi service owned by its members. “Then it was thought that if a taxi service was started on the cooperative model, this entire business of exploitation would automatically come to an end,” the Home Minister said.

Drawing comparisons with India’s dairy and fertiliser cooperatives, HM Shah emphasised that organisations such as Amul, IFFCO and KRIBHCO had demonstrated that cooperative institutions could generate economic success while ensuring that benefits reached their members directly.

“The foremost reason is that neither our Sarathis nor our customers should face any exploitation. That is the first objective. The second is to ensure dignity for the Sarathi. He should not be dependent on any app merely to obtain registration,” he said.

HM Shah said Bharat Taxi had been designed to combine those objectives within a cooperative structure where drivers themselves were stakeholders in the organisation.

–IANS

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