Last week, the Yandex.Go company, which has been said for more than a month that it intends to enter the Tajik market, announced that since February 15, an online service for booking trips has been launched in Dushanbe. To which the reaction immediately followed – the mayor’s office stated that the service’s activities in the country were illegal, and law enforcement agencies detained taxi drivers who had already begun working with it.
Today the company commented to “Asia-Plus” what is actually happening.
“Yandex.Go” operates in accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Tajikistan. The very model of the online service for ordering trips for the country is new, so our service can be mistaken for a carrier, but this is not the case.
“Yandex.Go is an international information platform. We do not have our own drivers and cars. We work with local partner carriers, who, in turn, cooperate with drivers and provide transport services to users,” the company said in a written response.
“Essentially, our platform helps users place their requests for a trip through the application, and transport carriers find them. Accordingly, the Yandex.Go service does not need permission to operate taxi transport services, but we carefully monitor that the necessary permissions were with our partners,” the company explains.
To the question: “what companies – taxi companies in Tajikistan do you work with?”, the press service of the Yandex.Go service did not answer, but noted: “We are open to cooperation with local fleets-carriers. At the launch, new partners and their drivers.”
The company noted that cooperation with carrier partners around the world is governed by a standard contract. All international electronic services in different service areas work on the same principle.
The press service of the company repeated: “Our partner carriers are recruiting drivers. To fulfill service orders, the driver must cooperate with such a carrier in Dushanbe, and according to the laws of the Republic of Tajikistan, a license and a number of requirements are required, in particular, for registration of a car, number color, etc.
It is important to us that partners work in accordance with local laws.
“In addition, we are in touch with the state authorities of Tajikistan, we notified the relevant departments in advance about the launch of our service in the country,” the company said.
At the same time, the company did not answer the question about the terms of cooperation with Tajik taxi fleets, about how the distribution of profits from orders is going on, noting only that their service, among other things, “is aimed at increasing the income of parks and taxi drivers with the help of technology.”
“Discrepancy in the amount of the order is not possible”
“Yandex.Go” also commented on the message of Dushanbe resident Sady Vorisov, who used the company’s service and spoke about it on his Facebook page .
According to him, the amount of the trip turned out to be more than indicated in the application. At the same time, he complained that “only expensive, comfortable cars can be selected in the application, and the icons for cheaper options are disabled.”
“Perhaps, due to the comfort of the car, the amount turned out to be more. The application showed that the journey would cost me 13 somoni, but in the end I paid 18 somoni. But the drivers are happy. My driver, an elderly man, said that he switched to Yandex. Go” from the local service “Yak.Taxi”, writes Vorisov.
The press service of the company replied to this: “The cost of the trip is known in advance – the user sees it in the application when ordering a car. The discrepancy that the user says is impossible in our service. Moreover, the support service checked all requests – we have not received such a request “.
Earlier, the company reported that new and comfortable cars such as Toyota Corolla, Hyundai Elantra, Kia Rio, Hyundai Solaris will come to orders.
The reaction of the authorities
Recall, the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Dushanbe on the evening of February 17 reported that as a result of a “targeted event”, drivers who collaborated with the Yandex Go online service and provided their services in the capital were detained.
The agency released the names and photographs of at least 14 detained drivers and claimed that “they believed deceptive social media announcements about the start of the company in Tajikistan and illegally began to work for it.”
“As a result of the operation, it turned out that some of the drivers who have contracts with other passenger transport companies established cooperation with this company in electronic form and began passenger activities, thereby violating the requirements of Article 511 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (Violation of license requirements or conditions implementation of a certain type of activity),” the message said.
The Dushanbe police also note that “the Russian service started its activities in Tajikistan illegally, as it has not yet been officially registered in the republic.”
With regard to the detained drivers, reports on an administrative offense were drawn up in accordance with Art. Art. 510 and 511 of the Administrative Code of the Republic of Tajikistan. Their cases are sent to court.
On February 17, the transport regulation department of the Dushanbe City Hall “Asia-Plus” stated that “the activities of this company are carried out illegally in the capital,” while experts then noted that they would try to find out everything on this issue within one or two days.
To date, no additional information has been received from the mayor’s office.
source: asiaplustj
