BENGALURU: Uber is resuming operations in Delhi from today, a month and a half after its service was banned in the national capital following the alleged rape of a passenger by a driver on its network.The US-based startup has applied for a licence to operate a radio taxi service, giving up its long-standing insistence that it is a technology provider and not a transport operator."Even though the current taxi regulations don't apply to technology aggregators including us, we were not left with any other option," an Uber spokesman said. "We heard our drivers and customers, and while we continue to work with the government and explain that we should come under IT laws and not taxi laws, we couldn't stay off the streets of Delhi any longer."Uber was under pressure to register as a taxi operator after the Delhi transport authorities steadfastly refused to budge from their position that Uber can obtain a licence as a radio taxi service. Besides, Uber’s competitors were running their services in Delhi despite the ban, which a senior company official at Uber said presented a threat to its long-term prospects.Uber competes against Ola and Taxiforsure. TaxiForSure applied for a license in Delhi two weeks back. Ola too has started the process to get a license, however transport department officials say the application is yet to be submitted.According to the transport department, once the paperwork is accurate then in the next week they will get approval and govt will issue letter of intent. After that the company is required to submit a bank guarantee (of about Rs 15 lakh for 5 years) and get a license.The Delhi transport department banned all taxi apps after the alleged rape. It later modified the Radio Taxi Scheme, paving the way for web-based aggregators such as Ola, Uber and Taxiforsure to operate cabs through a web portal or a call centre if they agreed to own their cars.A licensee under the modified radio taxi scheme must have a minimum fleet of 200 taxis either owned or through an agreement with individual permit-holders.They are allowed to start the service with a minimum fleet of 50 radio taxis.Under the earlier scheme, owning cabs was necessary to obtain a radio taxi licence.The aggregators do not operate their own taxis but provide the technology platform that links taxi owners and operators with passengers. While Uber and Ola work directly with drivers, Taxiforsure works with taxi operators.The Indian taxi market is estimated to be worth about $9 billion ( Rs 54,000 crore), of which only 4-6% is organised.Uber also ran into trouble with the bank authorities who objected to the company storing credit card information and allowing transactions without two-step authentication mandated by rules. The taxi hailing app was then forced to tie up with mobile wallet.