Bengaluru: Cab drivers launch online campaign to highlight hardship during lockdown

Bengaluru: Hit hard by the COVID-19 lockdown, cab drivers in Bengaluru have launched an online campaign called ‘Selfie with empty vessels’ to highlight their hardships.

Demanding financial assistance, they said at least Rs 15,000 must be deposited in their account.

Aggrieved with the alleged indifferent behaviour of the state and the Central government, the cab drivers launched the campaign where they posed wearing black ribbons to mark their protest.

A large number of drivers have taken part in the online campaign where they shared their photograph holding empty vessels to underline the hand-to-mouth situation prevailing in their lives.

“It is almost one-and-half months ever since the lockdown has been imposed but till now no one has responded to the plight of cab drivers,” Tanveer Pasha, the founder president of Ola Taxi For Sure and Uber Drivers and Owners Association said.

Pasha said due to the lockdown, all the drivers have been rendered jobless but the Union government and the State government has not paid any heed to their plight.

“There are around five lakh cab and autorickshaw drivers in Bengaluru. Most of them don’t have BPL (below poverty line ration) cards. The government’s assistance is not reaching them,” Pasha alleged.

The Association president said the MNCs have been paying those who work from home but the cabs attached with these companies have got nothing.

He alleged that the finance companies and private bankers have been pestering the cab drivers to pay the Equated Month Instalments (EMI) and demanded that the government initiate action against them.