App-based cabs will have to wait longer for permit. Current Affairs & General Knowledge January 2015.

I n what may turn out to be the first big consolidation move in the tech-backed cab services market, Olacabs is close to buying out TaxiForSure for $200-250 million, sources told TOI. The deal is already sealed and a formal announcement could be made in the next few weeks. Backed by Japan’s SoftBank Corp, Ola’s acquisition of the four-year-old startup will make the combined entity a clear leader in India’s fast-growing cab aggregation market, giving it a significant leg up over Uber. The wait for a radio taxi licence for Uber, Ola and others just got longer. On Wednesday , transport department officials said applications for a licence under the radio taxi scheme by appbased taxi services had been sent back to the companies.

“A deficiency notice has been sent to Uber, Ola, TaxiForSure and a Chennai-based company , NTL. All four had applied for a licence but certain documentation is missing, which they have been asked to furnish,“ said a senior government official.

Officials clarified that the applications of these four taxi service companies had not been rejected. They have simply been asked to fill the gaps in their applications.

“We have a checklist of documents and information that we need from the applicant. Parts of the checklist were missing from all four ap plications. They have been asked to provide the necessary documents so that the application can be further processed,“ said the official.

While TaxiForSure was one of the first app-based taxi services to apply for the radio taxi licence, Ola and Uber had followed suit earlier last week.The Delhi government had in December banned all taxis running under the app-based format. It had said that only those taxi services which have a valid radio taxi licence will be allowed to ply in Delhi.

The rest, like the appbased companies, were being prosecuted by the enforcement agencies. To escape action, Uber had relaunched its services in Delhi last week with the provision that it would not charge a fee for its service.The company said it would base itself on a government agency’s Pooch-O model.

The major app-based taxi services have been facing heat from the enforcement agencies after the ban, following the rape of an MNC executive by an Uber cabbie in December.