Global ride-hailing superpower Uber is focused on making it big it the Indian market. Recently, a company executive revealed that the company is holding talks with central and several state governments in order to pursue them to green light commercial use of private cars, which is currently illegal in the Indian subcontinent.

Speaking at the recently held Decongest India initiative event in New Delhi, Shweta Rajpal Kohli, the head of public policy at Uber India and South Asia said that the company is asking the government to provide at least a pilot of the project and then expand it depending on the outcome of the pilot.

Linking her company's thinking with the Decongest India initiative, Kohli said that country's capital city New Delhi alone has over one crore private cars that takeover the city's roads for a larger part of the day. She believes that commercialising use of private cars can help solve this problem to a greater affect.

Earlier in the month, a Reuters report had revealed that government policy think-tank Niti Aayog was in talks with Uber and other ride hailing companies "to assess the economic and environmental impact of using private cars as taxis".

Talking about the Decongest India initiative in particular, Kohli said that its San Francisco-headquartered company has decided to encourage more and more Indian population to avail its cab services over taking their personal car alone for a ride. The ride-hailing giant has also decided to educate people about using its pool services such as UberPool and UberMoto and making them aware of the advantages of using these pool services, both economical and environmental.

In order to encourage its pool services, Uber is considering incentivising riders to take UberPool and other pool services instead of hailing their private car service. Currently, in Delhi, one can avail an UberPool for 8km at as low as Rs. 49.

According to the company, their cars help in getting other cars off the road. Citing several studies, the company claims that every car that Uber adds to its fleet helps in taking about 9-13 cars off the road. It also revealed that UberPool accounts for more than 30 percent of all Uber rides in Delhi.

It is interesting to note that while Uber is banking heavily on UberPool for its Decongest India initiative plans, the Delhi government is currently contemplating banning them altogether as they have found these services in violation of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, which restricts them from making a stop and allowing additional passengers to join in a point-to-point journey. Uber is said to be talks with the Delhi government and working out a way to solve the issue soon.
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