Dr Khushalchand Baheti
In a significant regulatory overhaul affecting the country’s ride-hailing ecosystem, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has issued amendments to the Motor Vehicles Aggregators Guidelines, 2025, that ban advance tipping on cab booking platforms such as Uber, Ola, Rapido, and others, while also mandating the provision of a female driver option for women passengers at the time of booking.
Under the revised guidelines, the controversial advance tipping feature — which allowed passengers to offer a tip before a ride began to attract drivers or secure faster pickups — has been prohibited outright. Instead, ride-hailing apps must restrict any voluntary tipping mechanism to only appear after the journey has been completed, ensuring that passengers are not prompted for extra payments before service delivery. The ministry stressed that such tipping options must not be visible during booking or while the trip is ongoing. The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) had earlier flagged advance tipping as an unfair trade practice, noting that it effectively turned ride-booking into a bidding process that favored passengers willing to pay more to secure a ride. The agency said the practice contravened core principles of fair play in digital marketplaces and could disadvantage everyday users during peak hours.
In a related move aimed at enhancing passenger safety — especially for women — the ministry has introduced a new clause requiring ride-hailing platforms to offer an option for passengers to select a driver of the same gender, where available. This means that female users must be able to choose a female driver at the time of booking if they wish to do so, bolstering the safety features of cab-hailing services. As of now the woman driver workforce is — reportedly less than 5% across most aggregator platforms. This may push Aggregators for onboard more women drivers to make the feature consistently usable. Initially the mandatory female-driver option could lead to increased wait times or limited availability during peak demand periods. The guidelines Also mandate the crediting of full tip amount directly to drivers without deductions. State governments and Union Territories have been instructed to implement the updated rules immediately, and non-compliance could lead to stringent enforcement actions, including license revocations for aggregators violating the guidelines.