Kerala Savari was flagged off with much fanfare in August 2022.
| Photo Credit: S. MAHINSHA
As poor patronage continues to dog Kerala Savari, country’s first online taxi service owned by a State government, the State has decided to reload the app to ensure fair and decent service to passengers and fair remuneration to autorickshaw-taxi workers by offering prepaid rates for autos and taxis.
A proposal has been given to the government to revise the fares to the level of pre-paid auto-taxi rates to attract more auto-taxi drivers to the platform.
The State will soon take a call on the proposal and launch the app in Ernakulam and Thrissur in a month, Labour Commissioner K. Vasuki says. “Initially, there were some hiccups in the operations of the app which have been fixed by the service provider. We hope with additional benefits to auto-taxi workers, there will be renewed interest among the public and auto-taxi workers for the online platform. The aim of the government is to end the monopoly of private cab aggregators and ensure a level-playing field for everyone,” she says.
A senior officer says private app-based cab aggregators offered stiff challenge to Kerala Savari by offering attractive incentives to auto-taxi drivers. There were some hiccups in the beginning. The fares approved without surge pricing were not much attractive for the drivers as they found it hard to get return trips at odd hours. The pre-paid rates would solve this issue along with protecting the interests of commuters, says the officer.
Although over 10,000 people downloaded the app in Thiruvananthapuram soon after the soft launch of the online service in August 2022, only 1,023 used the app for 2,234 rides till this date.
Similarly, 1,552 autos and 340 taxis had registered under Kerala Savari operated by the Motor Workers Welfare Board under the aegis of the Labour department.
