Ola, Uber Subscription Service: Ola-Uber drivers will not have to pay commission, know what solution the company found?
Ola, Uber Subscription Service: Now auto rickshaw drivers providing taxi services through Ola and Uber will get full payment for every ride. For this, both the cab service provider companies have come out with a subscription based plan. Auto drivers will benefit from this scheme because they will not have to pay commission to the companies after the ride. Namma Yatri and Rapido have already started such services. Ola has launched this model in some big cities including Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. At the same time, this service of Uber will be available in 6 cities including Chennai, Kochi and Visakhapatnam.
Fees have to be paid every day or week
Under this new plan, now both the auto service aggregators will charge a fixed fee per day or week from the auto driver instead of taking commission on every ride. With this, the driver will not have to pay any other charge apart from the platform fee. In this, the fare of the auto booked by the customer will go directly into the driver’s pocket. However, the fees of the subscription plan have not been mentioned.
According to reports, drivers providing service from Rapido are paying between Rs 9 and Rs 29 as daily charges, while Namma passengers are offering their service at Rs 25 per day or Rs 3.5 per ride for up to ten rides. After which it is free.
Advantages and disadvantages of subscription based plans
Ola and Uber are providing services on commission-based model in many cities. In this, the platform takes a part of the fare of every ride as commission or booking fee and the rest goes into the driver’s pocket. In this, the platform itself provides the facility of riding price and online payment. Ola and Uber do not allow online payments in subscription plans and they also do not fix the price for rides. One disadvantage of this could be that drivers can charge arbitrary fare for the ride.
Service provider can get benefit of 5 percent GST
With this decision, Ola and Uber can get the benefit of 5 percent GST on services. However, according to tax experts, this model may lead to disputes between app operators and tax authorities. In September 2023, the Advanced Tax Ruling had told Namma Passenger that there is no need to collect and pay GST. But, there is a lack of clarity on whether this will apply to other platforms or not.
