The Maharashtra government has established a nine-month deadline for all bike taxi aggregators, including Ola, Uber, and Rapido, to transition to an all-electric fleet. According to reports from The Indian Express, this directive comes following instructions from Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, with the State Transport Department issuing guidance to ride-hailing aggregators and Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) across Maharashtra to ensure a phased transition to 100 per cent electric bike taxi fleets. The mandate represents a significant policy shift in the state's transportation sector, with the state transport department writing to aggregators earlier this month to phase out petrol-powered bike taxis in the next nine months.
Under the new plan, aggregators currently operating petrol-powered bike taxis will receive six months to comply with the electric vehicle mandate. As reported by The Indian Express, operators that have already applied for provisional or temporary licences under the Maharashtra Bike Taxi Rules, 2025 will be granted an additional three months to transition. The state government had previously granted provisional 30-day licences to aggregators in July last year to transition to electric bike taxis, but these platforms allegedly failed to comply with the rules, leading to licence revocation in March 2026. Afterwards, officials began undertaking enforcement action against aggregators for operating unauthorised petrol-powered bike taxi services.
The transition mandate comes under the Maharashtra Bike-Taxi Rules, 2025, which made electric vehicles a requirement for licensed bike taxis in July last year. According to The Indian Express, only electric two-wheelers painted yellow and marked as bike taxis are now allowed to operate commercially under these regulations. The state had also proposed a temporary daily fee of ₹5 on bike taxi services operating illegally, with Transport Minister Pratap Sarnaik stating that aggregators would be required to contribute 2 per cent of the fare from every ride to a welfare fund for bike taxi drivers. Bike taxis officially became legal in the state in July last year when the state government notified the Maharashtra Bike-Taxi Rules 2025.
The Maharashtra Bike Taxi Welfare Association wrote to Chief Minister Fadnavis and other officials in September, seeking one-and-a-half years to complete the transition to electric vehicles. As reported by The Indian Express, the association had also sought an extension until 2030. MBTWA president Amit Gawde reportedly stated that most bike taxi riders hail from middle or lower-middle-class backgrounds, making it difficult for them to undertake a significant investment to purchase an EV bike at once. The association cited the lack of EV charging infrastructure and the smaller life of an electric vehicle as additional challenges. Sources reportedly said that ride-hailing platforms had also sought an extension until 2030, citing the need for more time to transition their fleets, but the state government appears to have granted them only nine months to switch to EV fleets.
Local authorities have been actively enforcing the electric vehicle mandate, collecting fines totalling ₹16.25 lakh for illegal bike taxi operations between April 2025 and March 2026, and another ₹2.31 lakh during April and May 2026. The state government had previously granted provisional 30-day licences to aggregators in July last year to transition to electric bike taxis, but these platforms allegedly failed to comply with the rules, leading to the licence revocation in March 2026. The development comes four months after Sarnaik announced that the Maharashtra government would impose a temporary daily fee of ₹5 on bike taxi services operating illegally in the state.
