Cooperative cab service 'Bharat Taxi' to pilot test in first week of Nov

The ambitious taxi service, Bharat Taxi, is expected to make a soft launch in the first week of November at airports and select railway stations in the national capital, official sources said. The service, based on a cooperative model, is set to take on ride-hailing companies such as Ola, Uber, and Rapido.

 

The app-based service has so far onboarded around 650 drivers and will first be tested for a few days before being scaled up to cover the entire National Capital Region (NCR), the official explained.

 

A few months ago, the ‘Sahakar Taxi Cooperative Limited’ was formally registered under the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, with an authorised share capital of Rs 300 crore.

 

The elections for the cooperative were held on October 13. As a result, Jayen Mehta, managing director of Amul, has been elected chairperson, while Rohit Gupta, deputy managing director of the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), has been elected vice-chairperson.

 

The initiative is being jointly promoted by eight cooperative and financial institutions, including NCDC, Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO), dairy brand Amul, and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), among others. Each promoter has committed Rs 10 crore, totalling around Rs 80 crore as initial capital for the taxi service.

 

The drivers onboarded in the new taxi service have been permitted to purchase five shares of Rs 100 each to become members of the cooperative six months after joining.

 

“Unlike Ola and Uber, this taxi service will work on three major principles. First, ensuring a genuine price for both drivers and passengers (concepts like surge pricing, etc., won’t be permitted); second, redistribution of profits to drivers; and third, social security for drivers,” a senior official directly involved in the process said. He added that the cooperative taxi service won’t have any profit motive and that all profits will be redistributed among the drivers, with some even channelled towards their social security benefits.

 

An interim board has also been formed to oversee the initial operations. Gupta of NCDC is serving as the chairperson of the board. Other key members include V Sridhar (NDDB), Tarun Handa (NAFED), Naveen Kumar (NABARD), Santosh Shukla (IFFCO), and L P Godwin (KRIBHCO), among others.

 

The cooperative is also working to collaborate with leading educational institutions such as IIIT Bangalore for technological development, operational systems, and digital integration to match industry standards.

 

To create more employment opportunities in Tier-II and Tier-III cities, the Sahakar Taxi Cooperative plans to set up call centres in small towns and cities, unlike the large ride-hailing apps that have back offices in major metros, the official explained.

 

Earlier, Union Minister for Cooperation Amit Shah had announced the intention to start a taxi ride-hailing service in the cooperative sector called ‘Sahakar Taxi’, which would also allow registration of two-wheelers, rickshaws, taxis, and four-wheelers under one platform. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had also said that the platform would offer inclusive, citizen-centric, and technology-enabled public services.