E-Paper
Uber looks to bring rideshare to India
NEW DELHI: Uber drivers may be able to choose their own working hours. What’s more, if you have a car lying idle, you may be able to build a business around it using
NEW DELHI: Uber drivers may be able to choose their own working hours. What’s more, if you have a car lying idle, you may be able to build a business around it using the Uber platform.
The company is lobbying for ride-shares in India, which is the best way to generate employment and de-congest cities, Rachel Whetstone, Uber’s head of policy and communications, told HT.
In ride-share, anyone who owns a car can take people from point-A to point-B and charge for it. Indian laws do not allow drivers to use cars with white number plates for commercial activities, unlike in the US and UK.
The taxi-hailing app, which hit a bumpy road in India after a high-profile incident involving an Uber driver’s rape of a young woman passenger in the Capital in 2014 led to a four-month ban on its services, has stepped up its engagement with the government and policymakers as it gears up for an epic battle in the country against homegrown rival ANI Technologies Pvt’s Ola.
“With ride-share, if you have a car, you can work. That is fundamentally an entrepreneurial thing… People use ride-share to make money,” said Whetstone.
Ride-sharing gives part-time contractors, or driver-partners (drivers are not Uber employees), flexibility to work at their own time. “If you look at the US, it is interesting that 60% of our drivers drive less than 10 hours a week,” said Whetstone. Globally, and in India, too, people want to determine their own work schedule, she added.
Whetstone was in the Capital last week to launch UberPITCH — an initiative through which shortlisted entrepreneurs will get the opportunity over two days in November to pitch their ideas to venture capitalists and investors in 28 cities where Uber is currently operational. The initiative was launched by commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman. During the event, Whetstone also discussed the issue of mentoring startups with Sitharaman, company sources said.
Last month, top Uber executives also met Sitharaman to discuss ride-share.
Whetstone said that the government has been welcoming Uber’s ideas (on ride-sharing). “They see them as an opportunity to improve transportation in cities, by putting more people into fewer cars… It takes a bit of time.”
Ride-sharing was not in its scheme of things when Uber entered India more than three years ago. Its objective was to connect taxi drivers with passengers at the click of a button through its app. But a series of incidents, including the surgepricing issue, forced the company to change track.
Since then, Uber has done a number of public-private partnerships, and has taken steps to mentor startups. In September, it launched UberSHAAN, in partnership with Maruti Suzuki and National Skills Development Corp, to skill and enroll one million ‘driver –entrepreneurs’ by 2018. The focus clearly is ride-share.
Recently, the company hired senior journalist Shweta Rajpal Kohli to head its policy initiatives in the country. The policy team at Uber, comprising around 10 people, has been holding dialogues with state governments on issues of surge pricing, use of surveillance cameras and fare-monitoring metres in cabs and bike-taxis.
However, in ride-share, Uber doesn’t give away control fully — it deducts commission from drivers’ pay, directs which route the driver should take, and can choose not to give incentives if drivers decline too many trips. After all, Uber will get commission from every passenger and driver who opts for ride-share.
