A tale of discrimination and disgust by Uber drivers to Arman Ali for his disabilities

Chennai/Guwahati: The agony and pain of being mistreated by someone can well be understood and realized by one who himself has gone through it. A similar feeling of disgust and disappointment was felt by Arman Ali in Chennai while he was desperately looking for a cab to carry him to the airport on time and ended up not only misbehaved by the cab drivers but by missing his flight and an important meeting. Such is the irresponsible and ill-mannered attitude of the cab drivers in most part of the country today. What is more worrisome in this incident is that Mr. Ali is a disabled person and that became a reason for him to be mistreated by an Uber driver.

As stated by the victim, Arman Ali had booked an Uber cab to reach the airport at 3 pm. after having a verbal agreement with the driver that the latter will reach the location in 10-15 minutes, Ali found the driver later canceling the trip for some unknown reasons. helpless and annoyed at this, Ali booked a second cab to his destination and accordingly another Uber arrives at his location. After putting his luggage in when it came to putting his wheelchair inside the cab, the driver refused to put the wheelchair on the backseat and rather asked Ali to get down of the cab. In fact, Ali was kind of pushed out of the cab and the driver canceled the trip.

The harsh consequence was that on reaching the airport late, Ali found the counter being closed and he finally missed his flight. Even this was not the end of his tale of harassment as he had to buy another air ticket that cost him 14000 INR, wait for two more hours at the airport for the next flight and then reach his final destination. but that was also of no use as his important meeting that was scheduled for the same evening was also missed by him eventually.

This shows, how the unresponsive, irresponsible and inhumane attitude of two cab drivers rotted everything for Mr. Ali. Ali chose to speak up about it on social media and narrated his story. However, there may be several such Ali who gets mistreated by cab drivers due to physical disabilities or miscellaneous other reasons. Asli has also highlighted how people with disabilities are made to face discrimination of Uber drivers. The government of India, despite signing the CPRD. however, after passing the RPWD 2016 as well, people with disabilities are still being mistreated and discriminated at every level.

Arman now seeks the government of India to take up adequate steps as well as the Uber authority to curb such unruly attitude of the Uber drivers and provide the customers with an adequate solution.

Meanwhile, speaking exclusively to The Sentinel Digital, Arman Ali, Head of National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) said, "Private Company like UBER cannot get away from this, I will take it to a conclusion. Dare they have done this in countries like the US or UK for the same company, they would have to compensate in millions. They must compensate me for the money I have lost and the trauma and humiliation I have gone through. Moreover, as per the new Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPWD) Act, all service providers both public and private are answerable to people with disability. The law is very clear on it."

Also read: Gauhati High Court imposed Penalty on Assam Govt & Gold’s Gym for discriminating person with disability