Hyderabad: The fuel prices, which are heading north, have crashed the dreams of people who once bought four-wheelers, hoping to earn a livelihood by using them to provide cab services. On Monday, stating that there is an urgent need to revise the minimum fare from Rs 17 per km to Rs 22 per km, thousands of cab drivers held a black flag rally in different parts of the city. Urging the government to resolve the issue, the cab drivers association said around 40,000 of them will take part in the rally for the next two days.
The rise in diesel price is also forcing people who owned multiple cabs in the city to either sell their vehicles or return them to financers. In some cases, the financiers are taking the cabs back from cab drivers because most of them are unable to pay the monthly equated monthly instalments.
In one such incident, M Somesh, an app-based cab driver from the city, was forced to handover his cab to his financier as he was unable to pay his EMIs for last few months. “I had no other option, but to return my vehicle to the financier. I used to earn 1,500 or 2,000 per day before the lockdown, but now I don’t get more than 800 even after working for eight hours straight,” Somesh added.
Stating that the number of cabs in the city has come down from 1.25 lakh to 40,000 post lockdown, the cab and auto drivers’ bodies have submitted a representation to the aggregators demanding an increase in fare prices.
