NEW DELHI: A few hours after it was announced that Uber can no longer ply in Delhi, ET took two Uber cabs from Rafi Marg to Janpath and from Janpath to ITO and discovered that services were very much the same — the app was working fine and drivers were on time. What was, however, new was the anxiety among drivers. “I get more than 15 requests everyday.Today there were hardly 5,” said Prem, who drove one of the Uber cabs ET hired. Driver Kiranjeet , who has four other cabs and drivers registered with Uber, had much to say about everything that has changed from Monday morning. “My drivers called me in the morning saying everything is over. I panicked but now I am strong. The company has assured us that it will handle the situation.” Uber drivers received a message in the morning that asked for support from drivers and urged them not to go by “what others say and that the company was going nowhere”.The messages were sent in Hindi and English to all the drivers in the company. Two managers and top officials in Gurgaon are said to have interacted with some of the vendors who provided the company with more than one driver. Kiranjeet said he had received several calls from his friends most of whom did not go to work on Monday.“It was an unfortunate incident,” he said, talking about the rape. “One of the few instructions given to us is to call every woman, ‘madam’. We are told if she is drunk and passes out don’t wake her up on your own. Take her to the police station. If she vomits on your car seat, take a picture and send it to us, we will reimburse the loss. Don’t tell her anything.” Several drivers had made angry calls to the Uber Gurgaon office to know how the incident took place and why they were not informed about it on Sunday. “We got to know about it only from news.The company told us the driver had got the car a month ago, under its “own a car in Rs 70,000” scheme wherein Uber would finance the purchase. I shudder to think what if he was my driver,” Kiranjeet said. For many drivers too, who have got used to getting their salaries in banks, not bargaining with customers and more importantly, no every-hour tracking done by radio cabs, Uber has been a pleasant company to work for. A customer, who booked five Uber rides with the company on Monday, said she had more than Rs 2,000 in her prepaid Uber Wallet and feared they would go waste if the company stopped its cabs. Many of the drivers met at Dwarka on December 8 to plan what to do if the ban is not revoked.“We are hoping against hope that the issue will not flare up. Many of us have put in our life’s savings in the cars under the company,” said Prem. The service has over 5,000 cabs in New Delhi and NCR region. The drivers, ET hailed, reacted with much nonchalance when asked about the lack of driver verification and background check that Uber is being accused of.“No company does it,” said Prem who claims to have worked with two radio cab companies before joining Uber in March. Talk about tomorrow and his face dims further. “We know times are going to be bad. Today, many people didn’t know about the ban so they hired us. Many of us are also registered in other companies. Guess we will slowly move away.”