Pune: Gurgaon businessman Manmohan Sharma’s ride from Talegaon to Lohegaon airport on Wednesday evening turned into an ordeal after two drivers of a cab aggregator allegedly demanded additional payments and intimidated him.Sharma told TOI that he had booked an Uber cab to reach the airport by 5pm for his flight to Delhi. The first driver called him after accepting the booking and said he would have to pay the “meter fare” instead of the fare displayed on the app.“I asked him why I should pay a different fare from the one shown on the application. He said he would go by the ‘meter fare’ or I should cancel the trip,” Sharma said.The businessman refused to cancel the ride because he would have to pay a penalty. The driver also allegedly declined to cancel the ride. Sharma eventually cancelled the booking and ordered another cab.The second driver agreed to take him to the airport for around Rs700, the fare displayed on the app. Midway through the journey, Sharma alleged, this driver also demanded an additional Rs50 as a “toll charge”.“I told him that any additional charges should be included in the fare shown on the app. He differed. I agreed to pay the extra money because I had to board a plane,” Sharma said.The driver’s demands did not end there. On reaching the airport, Sharma said, the cabby demanded another Rs150 as “AC charges”. “This baffled me and I started arguing with him. He then called some other cabbies. They surrounded me and intimidated me. They kept saying that this was the rule here,” Sharma said.The Gurgaon businessman eventually paid the additional amount because he had to check in. “I have not seen such high-handedness of cabbies and autorickshaw drivers anywhere else. It seems the authorities have no control over them and they act according to their will,” he said.Maharashtra govt recently introduced a cab aggregator policy aimed at regulating app-based taxi services. Six companies, including Ola, Uber and Rapido, have applied for licences under the policy and have been given a three-month compliance window to submit the required documents. Commuters continue to report disputes over fares and additional charges.Rohit Jadhav, an NRI based in Germany for more than a decade, faced a similar situation last October after booking a cab from Wagholi to Pimpri. He alleged that the driver demanded about Rs1,000 against the Rs580 fare displayed on the app. When Jadhav told the cab driver to cancel the ride, the latter allegedly drove to him and started an argument. The cabby even called a friend and allegedly threatened the NRI with dire consequences.A senior RTO official said they were acting on complaints against cabbies and autorickshaw drivers. “We frequently take action against autorickshaw drivers and cabbies based on complaints, and this will continue. With the cab aggregator policy now in place, we hope everyone will fall in line as enforcement will become stricter,” the official said.
