Ola, attempting to escape Delhi ban, argues almost 50% of its cars in Delhi run on CNG
Following a crackdown by the Delhi traffic police on diesel taxis, the Ola ride-hailing platform will add a fleet of CNG (compressed natural gas) vehicles to its service, in the hope of overturning its current ban in the city. The company is now offering incentives to its partner-drivers for exchanging their old diesel-run cars with CNG vehicles. According to an Ola spokesperson "currently, there are over 25,000 vehicles registered on the platform in Delhi. Close to 50% of cars on the Ola app in Delhi are already on CNG. We are adding about 3,000 CNG vehicles in the coming week to ensure that customers have a cab available with a 5-minute ETA at any point of time, like always." 
NEW DELHI: Delhi high court ’s stricture against taxi aggregators for not complying with the city’s clean fuel policy is starting to have an impact. Ola cabs , which runs Ola and TaxiForSure app-based services, said the company was in the process of making its partner cabs run solely on CNG in the city.Over the past few days, Ola has been adding CNG vehicles to its fleet on a war-footing, claimed the company representative.“We are committed to complying with the CNG adoption and are adding more and more CNG cabs to the platform,” an Ola spokesperson said.“Currently, there are over 25,000 vehicles registered on the platform in Delhi NCR. Close to 50% of cars on the Ola app in Delhi are already on CNG. We are adding about 3,000 CNG vehicles in the coming week to ensure that customers have a cab available with a 5-minute ETA at any point of time, like always,” the spokesperson said.In the past few days, around 1,800 driver partners with vehicles running on CNG have been added by Ola, said industry sources.This is a welcome development for the transport department, which has been trying to get app-based taxi services to comply with rules application to cabs in the city. In Delhi, only CNG vehicles can be used as public or commercial transport.Taxi aggregators such as Ola and Uber have been using a large number of diesel-run vehicles. These were vehicles with All India Tourist Permits to ply outside the city. Since the app-based taxi services were running within the city, the court had upheld the transport department’s contention that these vehicles must switch to CNG.Both Ola and Uber still have a large number of diesel vehicles. But over the past week, both companies have been talking about enabling their driver partners to switch to CNG with tie-ups with vehicle manufacturers and banks. Sources said Ola was in talks with vehicle manufacturers to help their driver partners swap their diesel or petrol vehicles for CNG variants at attractive rates.Meanwhile, transport department officials say the applications by Uber and Ola for getting a permit to run taxi services are still pending. “We have given more time to the companies to respond to queries on their applications. Once the information is given, we will take a final call on the application,” said a senior government official.