Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched the ‘Stand up India’ initiative which aims at increasing entrepreneurship among people from the SC/ST community and women in India. He flagged off 5100 e-rickshaws under MUDRA Yojana and among these, 151 women were given e-rickshaws to ensure financial independence and help support their families better. These e-rickshaws can be booked via Ola and Freecharge and this collaboration comes under Digital India initiative.
The transport service app Ola, launched e-rickshaw category in the Delhi NCR region and customers can book the electric vehicles on the app. In partnership with Bhartiya Micro Credit (BMC), these will be sprawled across Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Faridabad and Ghaziabad.
Ola also plans to scale it up to Tier III cities and small towns. The base fare will cost Rs. 25 and Rs. 8 for every following km distance and the company will charge a 10% commission from the rickshaw pedallers. It will not charge convenience fee from the users. Ola and BMC will set-up and run skill development centres in small towns to enable continuous skilling and training for thousands of rickshaw driver-entrepreneurs.
Digital payments company Freecharge lets you pay the e-rickshaw drivers directly using pay via chat option on their app. The drivers will register as a merchant at zero investment and register their banking details, The customers can use the chat-n-pay service to pay them directly without the hassle of shelling out the correct ‘change’ from wallets.