Hearing on Ola, Uber license permits rescheduled for June 18

The SAT has put a licence permit for Ola and Uber on hold as documents submitted prove to be non-compliant with the MVA guidelines.

23 April 2024

By Payoshi Bisht

The State Transport Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has decided to schedule a hearing for both Ola and Uber licence permits on 18th June 2024. Initially, the date of decision was set for 22nd April 2024, which later got postponed due to the delay caused by Uber in appealing to the SAT, as per the statements given by the Regional Transport Office (RTO). 

Ola had already adhered to the call for submission by the SAT and had submitted its stance on 20th April 2024, but Uber failed to submit the documents to SAT, hence delaying the hearing process. Both Ola and Uber approached the SAT in order to get their licence permitted to operate normally within the transport guidelines in Pune. But their pleas were rejected and the RTO was asked to probe further into the matter and provide their conclusions on 22nd April, which was the initial date of hearing. 

As per RTO official Sanjeev Bhor, after the rejection of licences of both the companies, a notice period of 30 days was allotted to the companies within which they were required to apply to a higher authority. According to the guidelines set by the central government’s Motor Vehicles Aggregator (MVA) scheme, in case any aggregator is aggrieved by the order passed by an authority, then they can appeal to the state government or any such government-notified agency within a period of 30 days from the date of receiving the order. 

A meeting was held on 11th March 2024, chaired by the District Collector Suhas Diwase and attended by other members of the transport department. During this they concluded that the documents submitted by both the companies Ola and Uber were found to be non-compliant with the MVA guidelines. Ola and Uber are yet to comply with the ride fare changes made by the government after they increased the fare for air-conditioned taxis to 37 rupees for the first one and a half kilometres of the distance and then 25 rupees for every kilometre after that.

The final decision rests with the SAT to decide whether Ola and Uber will continue to provide services in Pune.