Uber disburses Rs 75 cr worth of credit to driver-partners in India via Uber Care initiative

Ride-hailing major Uber on Thursday said it has disbursed about Rs 75 crore in micro-credit and fuel credit to its driver-partners in India over the past one year under its Uber Care initiative.

The US-based company said that over 90,000 driver-partners have benefitted from various programmes being run under Uber Care that was launched in 2018.

"Over 90,000 drivers have benefitted from Uber Care, our driver welfare programme in the first year since rollout. While we run many programmes for our driver-partners across various countries of operation, Uber Care is an India-centric initiative," Uber India and South Asia Head of Central Operations Pavan Vaish told PTI.

He added that the top-5 cities where the highest number of drivers were impacted are Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune.

Vaish said that through Uber Care, the company is supporting its driver-partners by offering access to life and health insurance, financial support, children's education and medical consultations.

"Till date, Uber through its partners has helped disburse micro-loans worth Rs 35.6 crore to drivers across cities. There are various use cases that we saw whether it was to meet medical emergencies or even payment of the children's school fee," he said.

Vaish added that through its partnership with Indian Oil Corporation and Paytm, about Rs 38.7 crore worth of fuel credits has been facilitated in the past year.

As part of Uber Kifayat, 34,000 car servicing packages have been facilitated resulting in overall savings worth Rs 95 lakhs for driver-partners.

"We have also partnered with NGOs and experts to make the right to education more accessible to drivers' children. Till date, the programme has helped more than 600 children get admission into schools and we are working on ramping this more aggressively," he said.