by Apurva Venkat and Shashidhar KJ “That is not your bill at all, you should not look at it at all. Even if we assume that one booking has a bill of Rs 1000, you will get only the amount for the distance your car has run according to Micro cost card. Your operator bill has been made according to your cost card, not that of the customer,” an Ola driver-care executive named Amit (name changed) said in a call with driver Umang (name changed). Umang had called in to check on what he thought were discrepancies in earnings on Ola Share. He said that he had taken three Ola Share rides from different parts of Mumbai - from Breach Candy to Hiranandani Gardens to Thane - but earned only Rs 533 on the trips. However, the bookings on the customer’s side amounted to Rs 1,250. In the 20 odd call recordings sent in by Ola and Uber drivers and reviewed by MediaNama, Umang’s recording shed light on how ridesharing services, such as Ola Share and UberPOOL, work. Over the last couple of months, global publications such as Bloomberg and Quartz have been reporting on gaps between the fare a rider pays and what the driver receives during UberPOOL rides. In India, Ola is Uber’s biggest competitor. Ola Share and UberPOOL are comparable ridesharing services. The push for ride sharing benefits the environment, the companies, but not the drivers Both Uber and Ola have made a concerted push to try and get passengers to…
