According to a report from The Economic Times, Nitin Gadkari has been quoted as saying “Today, you see millions of jobs are being created in the transport market by truckers and taxi aggregators. Such technology will make millions jobless”. Citing this reason, he also said that the government is currently planning to introduce a smartphone app for booking taxis from various service providers.
The technology of Driver-less Cars or Self Driving Cars is taking the world by storm thanks to Tesla, and companies such as Google and Apple which also are trying to venture into the capabilities of autonomous self-driving tech. While this market is expected to boom in the near future, there are a lot of questions from the general public and the industry alike.
The first is a question regarding the reliability of self-driving vehicles. This subject has been continuously scrutinized due to the many cases of accidents reported from the prototypes and even complete models of such cars. However, until now there has been nothing which could prove that the self-driving tech would make more mistakes than regular human drivers tend to do.
The next important question is concerned with the Ride-Hailing Industry. The question is obvious. What would happen to the jobs of millions of Taxi and Cab drivers when the self-driving tech would take their place in cars of their employers? Will this sector completely eliminate the need for Human drivers after the establishment of such a technology? This question is difficult to be answered at present, which is why there are constant fears over the success of autonomous driving technologies and its impact on Employment.
Now coming to the government’s plan to launch a smartphone app for taxi bookings. This move seems important considering the fact that the Dominating companies of this sector in India: Ola and Uber have already created massive losses for drivers working for other companies and services. For this reason and for a few other reasons considering the pricing of fares and other issues, communities of drivers have been trying to join hands together to form new ventures to compete with Ola and Uber.
In Bengaluru, HDK Cabs, supported by the Ex-Chief Minister of Karnataka HD Kumaraswamy is trying to take on the current leaders. In New Delhi, a community of over drivers have launched their own app called Sewa.Cab, and in Mumbai, the Union of Drivers of the iconic Kaali-Peeli Taxis has provided an App called Aamchi Drive for people to use its services.
In such a case, the assistance from the government would be fruitful for the currently unemployed drivers and for those who haven’t been able to gain proper income due to the intense competition. Now the question that remains is whether not allowing the technology of autonomous technology in the future would mean taking a step back from growth and development? Or would it merely count as a measure for controlling employment in the Country?
