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Gadkari says bike taxis can create 8 crore jobs and pushed a negative-point licence system for road safety. Check where your city currently stands.
Gadkari called bike taxis a source of livelihood in rural and semi-urban India, particularly where a spare motorcycle is often a household’s only income-generating asset. (File photo)
Union minister Nitin Gadkari has urged all state governments to allow bike taxis, saying the sector could employ eight crore people. He also announced a new negative-point system for traffic violations that will lead to licence suspension and cancellation for repeat offenders under an amended Motor Vehicles Act.
Speaking at the launch of Suraksha — a pilot offering free on-the-spot medical diagnosis and counselling to 10 lakh highway and mining workers — Gadkari, on Wednesday, conceded that transport is a state subject and the Centre cannot force compliance, but pressed states to act, calling bike taxis a source of livelihood in rural and semi-urban India, particularly where a spare motorcycle is often a household’s only income-generating asset.
What Exactly Is Gadkari’s Road-Safety Plan?
• Negative-point licence system: MoRTH will amend the Motor Vehicles Act so every traffic violation adds points against a driver’s licence.
• Automatic action on repeat offences: Crossing a set threshold will trigger suspension; persistent violations can lead to outright cancellation.
• Aimed at “habitual offenders”: The government says this is meant to instil more responsible driving behaviour rather than penalise one-off mistakes.
• Paired with a health push: The Suraksha pilot — covering a 150-km stretch of NH-44 between Nagpur and Kamptee, plus the Chandrapur mining belt — will screen drivers and workers for eyecare and other health issues Gadkari linked directly to road safety.
• Bike taxi push runs alongside this: Gadkari argued wider bike taxi adoption and safer driving habits are part of the same larger road-safety and livelihood agenda.
Why Does A Rs 25 Ride Matter So Much?
Uber’s Pachisi campaign — a flat Rs 25 fare for rides up to 3 km — captures why the category has taken off despite years of regulatory chaos, Economic Times reported.
Bike taxis typically cost Rs 8-10 per km, against Rs 15-18 for autorickshaws and Rs 22-25 for taxis, industry estimates cited in a CUTS International report show. For someone commuting to office daily, that gap compounds fast — a work week of auto rides can cost nearly double what the same trips would cost on a bike taxi.
What’s Pulling Office-Goers Away From Cabs And Autos?
For short, five-to-ten km hops — the kind most daily commutes actually are — a car is often too expensive and too slow in traffic, while buses and metros may be cheaper but rarely drop a passenger exactly where they need to be.
A motorcycle splits the difference: point-to-point, and quick enough to cut through congestion. Rapido VP Rohit Rathod described this as a compelling combination of affordability and convenience for commuters, ET reported, and platforms are betting the same daily arithmetic will keep pulling office-goers away from four-wheeled options as more states fall in line.
What’s The Livelihood Story Behind Gadkari’s Eight-Crore-Jobs Claim?
Beyond fares, the sector’s bigger pitch is jobs. CUTS International, citing KPMG estimates, puts average monthly net income for bike-taxi operators at Rs 25,000-30,000 after expenses — a number that helps explain Gadkari’s eight-crore-jobs claim.
For someone who already owns a two-wheeler, the barrier to entry is near zero: idle hours between errands or after work become paid hours.
Rapido has tried to widen who gets access to that income through Pink Mobility, a woman-rider initiative, and Rah-Veer, a road-safety partnership with the highways ministry — though drivers in cities like Bhopal show how thin that promise gets once permit and compliance costs enter the picture.
Is Your City’s Bike Taxi Actually Legal Right Now?
The Centre’s Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines, 2025 opened the door for states to allow private motorcycles on aggregator apps, but each state — and sometimes each city, through the courts — has taken its own call.
| City | Status | What’s happening |
|---|---|---|
| Delhi-NCR |
Effectively banned in Delhi |
Delhi has never formally allowed bike taxis; a 2023 scheme proposed permitting only electric two-wheelers, but it’s still stuck in approvals. Noida and Ghaziabad, under UP rules, allow them. |
| Bengaluru | Running, after a court fight | Banned by Karnataka in April 2025; the state High Court’s Division Bench lifted the ban in January 2026, ruling motorcycles do qualify as transport vehicles. Services resumed on the ground from August 2025. |
| Mumbai (MMR) | Legal since 2025 | Years of bans and FIRs against Rapido ended when Maharashtra’s State Transport Authority granted provisional licences to Ola, Uber and Rapido under the new Maharashtra Bike Taxi Rules, 2025, with fares fixed at Rs 15 for the first 1.5 km. |
| Chennai | Grey zone | No formal ban, but no dedicated rules either — Tamil Nadu has flip-flopped for years amid auto-union protests, and the state’s approach remains among the most unsettled of any major market. |
| Kochi | Legal, but costly for drivers | Kerala places no legal bar on bike taxi permits, but drivers say the cost of a commercial permit and higher insurance eats into already thin earnings. |
| Lucknow | Allowed | Uttar Pradesh is among the states that notified rules early, permitting motorcycles as contract carriages. |
| Patna | Allowed | Bihar is listed among states that continue to permit bike taxi operations. |
| Kolkata | Allowed since 2016 | West Bengal was among the earliest states to formally register two-wheelers as contract carriages for bike taxis. |
| Hyderabad | Allowed, but contested | Telangana permits bike taxis, though driver and taxi unions have pushed the state to restrict them, citing competition worries. |
| Bhopal | Legal, but a crackdown looms | Commercial bike taxis can keep running — MP’s rules allow them — but the Transport Department has only 200-300 bikes on record with commercial plates against a claimed 10,000-plus Ola and Rapido bikes on the road. RTO Jitendra Sharma says any privately-plated bike caught carrying paying passengers will face action, a threat that followed a two-day taxi union strike on August 18-19 demanding exactly this. |
| Chandigarh | Allowed | Among the earliest UTs to permit motorcycles as taxis, dating back to a 2004 central notification. |
| Dehradun | No clear policy yet | Uttarakhand does not figure prominently in state-notification lists so far — no dedicated bike taxi rules and no reported plans either. |
The pattern that emerges isn’t simply allowed-versus-banned — Bhopal’s case shows a third, more common reality: bike taxis are technically legal, but running mostly on vehicles that aren’t.
Gadkari’s appeal is essentially a push for holdout states like Delhi and Tamil Nadu to reach the clarity Maharashtra and Karnataka arrived at only after court battles, while cities like Bhopal wrestle with enforcing the rules that already exist.
Quick Answers
Ask News18It is not guaranteed that all Indian states will soon allow bike taxis, as individual states have the final say on whether they can operate on their roads. While the central government has urged states to permit them and has provided a regulatory framework, transport is a state subject, meaning the Centre cannot force compliance. Consequently, different states have taken varied approaches, with some states not allowing them or imposing bans.
Ask News18About the Author
Sumedha Kirti is a Chief Sub Editor with over eight years of experience — both at the desk and reporting. She is a graduate from Delhi University’s Miranda House. Kirti has previously worked with news…Read More
September 03, 2026, 11:15 IST
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