Ola heaved a sigh of relief on Saturday after their six-month suspension in Bengaluru was revoked by the Karnataka government. Ola cabs were back on the roads on Sunday.
Karnataka Minister for Social Welfare Priyank Kharge said that the cab service company would go back to their normal business from Saturday evening.
Kharge tweeted, "@Olacabs will run their business as usual from today. However, there is an urgent need for policies to catch-up with new technologies & also industries too should work closer with Govt to help evolve policies for innovations."
Karnataka's Road Transport Ministry had suspended Ola cabs for six months for operating illegal bike taxis in Bengaluru.
Transport Commissioner VP Ikkeri told The Hindu that even though the department issued permits for Ola to run a cab service, they illegally began running bike services too.
"Our officials had impounded the two-wheelers attached to Ola, carried out investigation and charge sheets were also filed in the court. The response given by Ola to the notices served by the department was not satisfactory, so action has been taken as per the rules," Ikkeri said.
However, Kharge was positive that Ola will be up and running soon and that this was just a glitch. He also felt that in a few days, the government will also embrace the bike taxi policy.
"I've had a meeting with the transport department. The transport officials have also met the chief secretary. It'll be resolved, it should not be a problem. There are new technologies that are being introduced. Policy in any part of the world, not only in Bengaluru, is always playing catch-up with technology. Innovation happens faster than policy. That is why we had suggested that any innovation that needs to be evaluated by the government, we will come up with an innovation authority which will be headed by the CM," Kharge told The News Minute.
He added, "Any innovation, as long as it is legal in the nature of its business, it should be allowed. Even the private sector should understand this and they should also come and seek the right permissions from the government saying, 'Look, we're going to pilot this in a sandbox environment and it is going to happen from such and such date and we would require permission'. Because at the end of the day when somebody raises concern from the public perspective, we are answerable."
