Govt mulls pan-India ban of Uber, Ola, and TaxiForSure apps

The government is mulling blocking mobile taxi hailing apps of Uber, Ola and TaxiForSure all over the country, with the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) seeking views from the Transport Ministry for the same. The Delhi government had requested DeitY to block such apps, but the Department found it technically impossible to do so for one particular state, and therefore, it sought “concurrence” of the transport ministry for all-India execution, a senior IT ministry official told PTI. The official added that it is technically not possible to block an application only in Delhi and the execution can only happen at the national level. “Therefore, we have sought views of the Transport Ministry and are waiting for their reply,” the official said. When contacted, a senior official in the Road Ministry said: “We are looking into it on our own. More details will be worked out next week.” The Delhi government last month had requested the Centre to block apps of taxi operators Uber, Ola Cabs and TaxiForSure alleging that these companies were not complying with a ban order imposed by it. All app-based cab services were banned in the national capital after a driver of Uber, the US-based online taxi- hailing company, was accused of raping a female passenger. The Delhi transport commissioner had also said that a number of complaints were being received by the transport department saying operations of such taxi services in an unauthorised manner were putting the safety and security of commuters at risk. PTI