Taxi Hailing Services – Uber and Careem declared illegal in Punjab and Sindh

A few hours ago Punjab Government’s Provincial Transport Authority issued a notification to City Traffic Police Lahore declaring all those local private and multinational taxi hailing services including Uber and Careem as illegal. Following that, Sindh Government has also issued notifications to a private taxi service in the province.

The governments have prohibited the services from functioning until further notice or a strict action will be taken against the mobile based taxi service providers.

According to the notification issued to the Chief Traffic Officer Lahore, Punjab Govt. pointing Uber, Careem and A-One specifically, showed concerns about the private cars being used by the mobile based taxi service providers without registering the cars from regulatory body and without obtaining fitness certificate or route permits.

“These companies are providing cab services through android devices/mobile phones and private cars are being used through on-line applications, whereas these cars are registered in private capacity, and being utilized on commercial basis, which is violation of Section 2(5), (20), Section 39 and Section 44 of Motor Vehicles Ordinance, 1965 as well as Policy under Rend-A-Car Service of the Punjab PTA.” – referred in the notification.

The notification further added that the drivers of these private cars do not have security clearance from government’s security authorities.

The services also restricted by Sindh government

Just after a few hours of Punjab government’s action, Sindh government has also turned into action-mode having stated that the provincial government has previously wrote five letters to the Careem administration but received no response in return.

Likewise, the Sindh government also referred about the required commercial-state of any vehicle providing taxi services. However believing the service’s nature as good and having the idea of keep it running, Sindh government didn’t ban the taxi service at all like Punjab government but wanted legal requirements to be fulfilled.