NEW DELHI | BENGALURU: Delhi has finalised rules which will allow cab-hailing apps such as Uber and Ola to operate in the national capital, hoping to bring to an end nearly a month of uncertainty about their status. It said the cab aggregators can operate under rules meant for radio taxis , but not all were happy with the solution that Delhi has come up with.As reported by ET on Saturday, all licensees under the modified Radio Taxi Scheme, 2006, must maintain a minimum fleet of 200 radio taxis. They can either directly own the cars or acquire them through agreements with individual drivers who have licensed taxi permits, prompting an outcry from aggregators which insist they only provide a technology platform linking customers and drivers.The new rules open a window for taxi-app companies to obtain a licence and relaunch services that were banned in the national capital region earlier this month following the alleged rape of a woman passenger in Delhi by a driver registered on the Uber network.Taxi aggregators believe that the scheme has been issued under Section 74 of the Motor Vehicles Act and it doesn’t solve the legal problem. The solution, according to them, is to instead allow companies such as Uber, Ola and TaxiFor-Sure to be covered under the Information Technology Act as an intermediary."We are not a radio taxi company, therefore the Transport Department’s amendments to the radio taxi scheme do not help us serve our riders and drivers in Delhi," a spokesman for Uber said.Delhi has said that services can begin with an initial fleet of 50 cars, in contrast to earlier rules where companies had to own a minimum of 500 cabs to be eligible for a radio taxi licence. The new rules also specify that the licensee shall provide a fare rate estimator on the website, Internet-enabled application or digital platform. It also requires the licensee to install panic buttons in taxis so that in case of any distress, the signal is transmitted to the control centre of the licensee and from there to the nearest police station or police control room.Discontent was rife among aggregators who claim they fall under the provisions of the IT Act, similar to what governs operations of online retail marketplaces such as eBay and Flipkart.“As taxi aggregators, (we) will not come under this,” said Aprameya Radhakrishnan, co-founder of TaxiForSure, which has about 12,000 drivers on its network.In a meeting with executives of Uber, the Delhi Transport Department has stipulated that the company will have to comply with new rules if it is to operate services in the national capital.“All the information solicited from Uber has been dutifully provided to the authorities. We look forward to a positive outcome which benefits the people of Delhi,” said Eric Alexander, head of Asia operations for Uber.Drivers are unhappy with the new rules that bind them to a 2003 order of the Supreme Court order which mandates the use of LPG/CNG fuel for all taxis. “The new rules will make cabs of thousands of drivers redundant if CNG is forced upon us,” said AS Pandey, a Delhi-based driver who owns a Toyota Etios cab and drives for Uber.The Radio Taxi Association of India has welcomed the move. “The rules had become archaic and needed to be amended as the business models had changed. But everyone should be on a level playing field under the new rules,” said Kunal Lalani, CEO of Mega Cabs and the president of Radio Taxi Association of India.As under the previous rules, the radio taxi shall have to be fitted with GPS and GPRS-based tracking device and a printer.“We welcome the rules as they have left upon the provider to charge fares lower than prescribed,” said Meru Cabs CEO Siddharth Pahwa, whose company operates both an aggregator service and a full-fledged radio taxi operation.(With inputs from Harsimran Julka in New Delhi)