Uber, Careem in trouble; Government seeks legal action

Taxi service providers, Uber and Careem, changed the landscape of Pakistan’s transportation services, as more and more people had started to use this convenient mode of transportation, which is available at the click of a button. However, it now seems that these companies, including another by the name of A-One, are on the verge of a close-down, as the government has termed them as illegal.

Yesterday, the Punjab government declared the services of Careem, Uber and A-One as illegal and just a day after, the Sindh government has also followed suit. Both the provincial governments have also sought legal action against these mobile-application taxi service providers.

The Sindh and Punjab governments have declared the use of private cars as taxis, without the mandatory legal permits as ‘illegal’ and has contacted Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block Careem’s mobile application, on which the company relies for its operations.

The provincial government has also initiated action against Uber to bring the app within ‘official compliance’.

According to the Secretary Transportation, private cars need to be made commercial, in order to be used as taxis. He further mentioned that he wrote five letters to Careem management as a warning but he never received any reply.

According to the official requirements of turning private cars into commercial cars, owners would be required to obtain fitness certificates of the cars and also require route permits.

A notification was issued by the Punjab Transport Authority on Tuesday, in which it was mentioned that because of the ‘illegal’ use of private cars for taxi services, the provincial government is facing huge financial losses.

So far Careem, Uber and A-One management has not responded to the situation but the government has vowed to take strict action against these companies if they keep operating without the requisite approvals.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=54417

Posted by fatimaarshad on Jan 31 2017. Filed under Latest News, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.