Namma Yatri wins multi-year contract to power Bharat Taxi’s tech stack
The partnership comes amidst the ride-hailing player’s attempts to expand its infrastructure play, whereby it utilises its infrastructure prowess to collaborate with the government to ease mobility constraints in India.
Ride-hailing startup Namma Yatri has entered into a multi-year contract with Bharat Taxi—a new government-backed cooperative ride-hailing app in India, the company told YourStory.
Namma Yatri’s co-founder and COO, Shan M S, added that the company was chosen after a three-month rigorous selection process. He did not disclose the duration of the contract.
Mint was the first to report on this matter.
The platform is currently being piloted in Delhi and Gujarat. A source familiar with the matter added that the platform has onboarded around 90,000 drivers and that the demand for the service is picking up. The source also noted that the service will look to establish its footing in these two states before venturing into other regions.
Shan did not comment on the matter as details of the rollout are confidential.
Bharat Taxi, which is run by Sahakar Taxi Cooperative Ltd, is a zero-commission model with fixed fares and driver ownership, aiming to provide fairer terms for drivers and transparent pricing for users. This will put the service in direct competition with ride-hailing services like Uber and Rapido.
Notably, this also brings the platform into direct competition with Namma Yatri’s ride-hailing offerings.
However, the firm has recently doubled down on its infrastructure play, collaborating with state governments to launch mobility apps that integrate multiple modes of transport onto a single platform. This partnership is a part of this offering.
“We are enabling communities and governments to launch their own mobility apps - whether it is a community-led app, a cooperative model or a state-owned platform. The idea is that we become an infrastructure player,” Shan said. “Think of us like a Google Cloud or AWS, where we provide the software, infrastructure, operational support and technical know-how. But the ownership stays with the driver cooperative or the state government,” he added.
Edited by Jyoti Narayan