Even as the controversy over surge pricing by taxi aggregators in Delhi continues to attract headlines, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has now tweeted that there are some media houses which might have vested interests in advocating surge pricing.
Some media houses supporting surge pricing. One of these media houses has Rs 150 cr investment in one of these taxi aggregators
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) April 20, 2016
Both Ola and Uber temporarily suspended surge pricing in the capital after Kejriwal had announced strict action against cabs that overcharged customers.
Even so, 50 cabs have reportedly been impounded in the past 12 hours for overcharging.
On his Twitter account, Kejriwal called surge pricing “daylight robbery”, and also said that taxi services that refused to ply enough cabs in the absence of surge pricing were trying to blackmail the government, and said that would not be allowed.
Surge pricing is daylight robbery. No responsible govt can allow that(1/2)
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) April 20, 2016
Some taxis saying they will not provide cab if they are not allowed to loot. This is open blackmailing n govt will not let that happen(2/2)
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) April 20, 2016
Thus far, Kejriwal has stayed silent on the name of the media house he is referring to in his accusatory tweet. The tweet has caused a bit of a stir with people eagerly nudging the Delhi CM to name the media house:
@Sootradhar @upma23 @ArvindKejriwal and please name that medua house now that u r a cm with access to every files
— Dipesh Bothra (@silenceofdheart) April 20, 2016
@ArvindKejriwal who r them plz let every one know. N dont run ur add in these media houses
— Chaman varshney (@varshneytheneta) April 20, 2016
Interestingly, Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL) entered into a $25 million (150 crore) marketing and investment deal with Uber in March 2015 through Times Internet, the digital wing of the Times of India group.
The Economic Times published a blogpost titled “In defence of surge pricing of Cab rides” early on Wednesday morning, a few hours before Kejriwal posted the tweet in question. The blog accuses the Delhi government’s decision to apply the odd-even rule of offending “economic sense” in the name of combating pollution.
It adds, “To compound the offence, it has now forced cab-hailing companies from calibrating supply to spiking demand with ‘surge pricing’, a policy of raising fares in times of increased demand. Congestion pricing has been part of the sensible solution for managing traffic in Delhi that has been given the go-by in favour of the odd and oddly named odd-even policy.”
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