I visited New Delhi a week back for office related work. During this trip, I get a chance to travel frequently in , Easy Cab, Meru Cab etc. As I was wondering about how this cab system works in India during my one hour long trip from the hotel to Nehru place in an Easy-Cab, I thought of asking the driver directly. Here is how the system works:
1. Every new joinee (driver) will have to pay a joining fee of ~INR 14k and be a member for 5 years
2. Every driver has to pay ~INR 1,300 per DAY to the company. If he fails to pay, he would not be sent notifications about guest requests at all and, therefore, be denied taking passengers
3. The booking charges (when the guest calls up the company) goes to the company
4. Maintenance is to be done by the driver
5. After 5 years, with few more thousands, the car belongs to the driver
Quite Interesting .. a bit of maths - 1300 per day * 30 days * 500 taxis = 1,95,00,000 per month + all the booking charges from delhi region alone for the company.
And the company is adding taxis (expanding) so the company is growing. All well and good as it seems for the car rental company.
However, when I asked the driver if he will continue this, he said that "sir, pichle 4 saalon me ameer aur ameer hua hai, aur gareeb gareeb". He continued explaining why - when he joined 4 years back, number of taxi were less so he was earning around 3000 per day (from that he will pay back 1300 to company every day). But the company has expanded over years, other rental companies have come up and, therefore, the waiting time has increased tremendously. He now earns around 1700-2000 per day and then has to give 1300 back to the company. Petrol prices have gone up and, therefore, the operating profit has gone down severely.
This is the state of drivers of every other car rental company, and truth behind the scenes. This was reconfirmed by another taxi driver in my other trip.
This led me thinking about how the taxi system works in Singapore and do the cabbies feel the same. Will have to check some day. However, I now understood that it is not always true that if the company grows, so does the prospect of its employees (indirect).
1. Every new joinee (driver) will have to pay a joining fee of ~INR 14k and be a member for 5 years
2. Every driver has to pay ~INR 1,300 per DAY to the company. If he fails to pay, he would not be sent notifications about guest requests at all and, therefore, be denied taking passengers
3. The booking charges (when the guest calls up the company) goes to the company
4. Maintenance is to be done by the driver
5. After 5 years, with few more thousands, the car belongs to the driver
Quite Interesting .. a bit of maths - 1300 per day * 30 days * 500 taxis = 1,95,00,000 per month + all the booking charges from delhi region alone for the company.
And the company is adding taxis (expanding) so the company is growing. All well and good as it seems for the car rental company.
However, when I asked the driver if he will continue this, he said that "sir, pichle 4 saalon me ameer aur ameer hua hai, aur gareeb gareeb". He continued explaining why - when he joined 4 years back, number of taxi were less so he was earning around 3000 per day (from that he will pay back 1300 to company every day). But the company has expanded over years, other rental companies have come up and, therefore, the waiting time has increased tremendously. He now earns around 1700-2000 per day and then has to give 1300 back to the company. Petrol prices have gone up and, therefore, the operating profit has gone down severely.
This is the state of drivers of every other car rental company, and truth behind the scenes. This was reconfirmed by another taxi driver in my other trip.
This led me thinking about how the taxi system works in Singapore and do the cabbies feel the same. Will have to check some day. However, I now understood that it is not always true that if the company grows, so does the prospect of its employees (indirect).
2 comments:
nice study .. good to have a ground reality of things .. Rs 1300 / day is too much ..
Family gathering? Try our newly presented single-direction taxi services
Post a Comment