Piku's problem is now Calcutta's too. If the young architect played by Deepika Padukone had trouble hiring a cab from her CR Park home to office because no driver wanted to follow her speeding orders, car owners in Calcutta are losing chauffeurs to app-based cab aggregators.
The increasing popularity of Uber and Ola has made it difficult to find a driver for a private car as the taxi aggregators have been wooing them away with fat salaries.
The monthly salary of private drivers has shot up by at least Rs 2,000 over the past few months.
Paramita Gupta's family has had a driver on the rolls for almost four decades but when their full-time driver - who was paid Rs 8,000 a month - retired a few months ago, the Guptas couldn't find a new one for the same salary. The family now hires drivers on a need basis. "For the past three-four months, we have been hiring drivers at a daily rate or using Uber or Ola. Employing a driver is tough these days," said the Ballygunge Circular Road resident.
Bhowanipore resident R. Sen has an elderly driver whom he pays on a daily basis. "We pay our driver Rs 300 per day for eight hours plus Rs 30 for every extra hour. In total, he gets around Rs 10,000 every month, including overtime. We generally give an annual hike to retain him."
"Drivers are demanding higher pay or joining Uber and Ola where they are being paid much more. Our company used to hire drivers from an agency, which is now facing a crunch of drivers. Two drivers have bought Swift Dzires on loan and joined Uber," said Sen, who works in a public sector company.
Ola pays Rs 28,000 a month to anyone who gives out his car, said an employee of a city-based company that provides drivers to customers. "In this model, the cost of fuel and driver is Ola's. But for car plus driver plus fuel, Ola will pay Rs 58,000 per month," said Aman, who works with Car Services and Solutions. The agency has recently lost several drivers from its pool of over 400 to Ola.
The rates are lower in north Calcutta but only a little. Debapriya Sen, who lives in Ramkanta Bose Lane near Bagbazar, pays Rs 8,000 every month to his driver. "I provide him accommodation as well," said the chartered accountant with CESC, who has had to call an Ola cab to reach his office in central Calcutta when his driver was on leave. To retain his driver, Debapriya increases the pay every year and offers other benefits.
An Ola driver apparently gets Rs 15,000 a month. "The salaries are fabulous, the duty hours punishing. For 12- hour shifts, drivers are paid Rs 15,000 a month," said Aman.
The amount is almost double of what Aman's company pays. "We revise our rates every year. The salary of a driver for a hatchback is Rs 8,500 per month for 10 hours of duty. Last year, it was Rs 8,000 and in 2013 Rs 7,500. For a sedan, the pay is Rs 9,000 per month with provisions for overtime. And for luxury sedans such as Mercs and BMW, drivers get Rs 11,000-Rs 12,000 per month," said Aman.
An Ola spokesperson attributed the high pay to the company's scale of operations. "We can offer such competitive rates to both our drivers and our passengers (Rs 9 per km for hatches and Rs 12 per km for sedans with a base price of Rs 99 for the first 4km) because of the scale of our operations. We have 150,000 vehicles operating nationwide," said Anand Subramanian, senior director (marketing communications) of Ola, which has 3,500-plus vehicles in the city.
The aggregator also hires drivers from agencies. Mrinal Mondal, who runs carservices.in, a portal where one can book drivers, provides drivers to Ola. "They pay Rs 18,000 per month to drivers. We keep Rs 2,000 as one-time commission from the driver." In Mondal's company, the rate for a driver is Rs 250 for six hours, Rs 500 for 12 hours. The driver has to pay Rs 20 as commission to Mondal per day.
