Will not allow any violators to operate: UP State Transport Commissioner

LUCKNOW: There is no move to ban Uber in Uttar Pradesh (UP), due to the sheer fact that it is not operational in any city of UP.

State Transport Commissioner, K Ravindra Naik, said "We will not allow any violator to operate in UP. Right now Uber is not present in UP and therefore there is no move to ban it as such. We have not received any communication from the Centre yet."

Naik added that the state only allows full fledged radio taxi operators to take license and operate.

Web based taxi aggregators are not allowed in UP. " Ola had started operations in Lucknow this September, but was soon banned as we found many violations by them including not taking proper licensing and use of non-CNG cabs by the company." He said that several radio taxis like My Cab, Desire Destination, and Flash Cabs which have taken license from the state government are operational in UP and will continue to run in the future also.

Naik said that in case violation is found by these operators action would follow but right now they have valid license to operate and will continue to do so. Meru has been given the permission to operate in UP and will soon begin services in the state, he added.

State Transport Authority, Secretary, Anil Mishra said that web based cab aggregators like Uber and Ola are not allowed to operate in UP. He said that Uber and Ola are not defined as radio taxi firms and are only a web based applications for getting taxis and therefore they are not allowed to operate in UP, under existing regulations.