Bharat Taxi Cab Service: Ola Uber is going to get a big blow. The country’s first cooperative cab taxi service, ‘Bharat Taxi’, will be launched today. Union Home Minister Amit Shah will inaugurate it in Delhi. The biggest feature of Bharat Taxi service is that no commission will be taken from the drivers. They themselves will be stakeholders or owners of the platform.
According to the Ministry of Cooperation, the aim of ‘Bharat Taxi’ is to free the drivers from the model of private aggregator companies. The trial of taxi service was started on 2 December in Delhi and Rajkot of Gujarat. It has been successful.
Retirement savings and driver support system will be available
During the launch, Amit Shah will felicitate the six best performing drivers (called ‘Sarathis’). These drivers will also be given share certificates of the company. Honorable drivers will get Accidental Insurance Cover of ₹5 Lakh and Family Health Insurance Cover of ₹5 Lakh. Apart from this, facilities like retirement savings and driver support system have also been added for all the drivers joining the platform.
Relief from zero commission and surge pricing
Private companies like Ola and Uber usually take 20% to 30% commission from the drivers’ earnings. In contrast, Bharat Taxi will work on a ‘zero-commission’ model. This means that whatever the driver earns, it will go directly to him. Additionally, customers will also benefit as there will be no ‘surge pricing’ (higher fares during peak hours). With this, passengers will be able to get taxis at affordable rates.
Target to reach every city in next 2 years
Bharat Taxi aims to be launched in all the states and big cities of the country in the next two years. For this, it will be integrated with the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) of the government. Support centers for drivers have also been started at 7 major places in Delhi.
Who will drive Bharat Taxi?
This is a membership-based model, which will be run by Sahakar Taxi Cooperative Limited. It was established in June with a capital of ₹300 crore. This app-based service is part of Digital India. There will be a Governing Council, whose chairman will be Amul MD Jayen Mehta and vice chairman will be NCDC Deputy Managing Director Rohit Gupta. It also has eight other members associated with various cooperative societies across the country. The first meeting of this board was held on 16 October.
