'Life As An NCR Uber Driver Is A Struggle'

ut as completion grew, his work hours went up and earnings dived. After paying up the loan instalment, house rent and the company commission, Bhabani barely makes to feed his family of three.

Everybody thinks that we Uber drivers have it made. We drive fairly new cars; we have GPS-enabled devices that help us navigate our vehicles; and we, at least most of us, look happy. But as Uber makes life easier for you, for us it has become harder. There are at least 1.5 lakh Uber cabs registered in Delhi. And an equal number of Ola cabs too. That means making a living from driving cabs is all about extra long hours and shrinking earnings.

Just to give you an idea, consider this: If you want to go from Gurgaon’s Galleria Market to Cybercity, an Uber can take you there for as little as ₹69. Do you know what an autorickshaw will charge you? ₹100. The Hyundai Accent I have is a year old. I paid ₹6.55 lakh for it for which I took a ₹4.6-lakh loan. My monthly loan payments are ₹13200 for four years.

There are other regular monthly payments that I have to make: Rs. 3000 as toll tax; about ₹1000 every day to Uber in commission; and fuel costs (I use CNG so that is about ₹15000 a month). If I take the car out at 6.30 am and work till 9.30 pm, after paying Uber and all the other costs, I usually end up with ₹16-18,000 a month. I have a wife and a five-year-old child and we live in a small room in Delhi’s Dakshinapuri.

I pay a rent of ₹4000. That leaves us around ₹12-14,000 on which to live. Things used to be different when I started out a year back. Uber offered good incentives and I could make around ₹25000 a month. But those good days are gone. There are too many of us on the roads now and the company has cut down all those incentives.

All through the day, I have to struggle to make even ₹2500 on trips. Every time a customer orders an Uber, there are at least five or six cars in the fray to capture that order. Then there’s the competition from Ola. I have a friend who works 24 hours at a stretch to make ends meet. He starts his day at 5 am, works till 5 am the next morning, and then sleeps the next day before repeating the same schedule the next day.

He’s 25 but looks like he’s 40! If I worked as a driver for someone, I think I could make more but now I’m stuck. I bought the car, have to pay back the loan, and I have to keep these long hours. Perhaps I should never have left my village in Tripura. (The author’s name has been changed to protect his identity; his version, based on an interview in Hindi, has been translated and edited by Lokmarg’s editors).