‘I get one booking a day’: Six months on, Bharat Taxi drivers say work is scarce

Chaman Lal, a driver from Delhi’s Azadpur, said he gets one booking in the 10 hours he works. (Express Photo)

So he signed up at the CNG station.

In the initial days, he used to get one booking every alternate day or so, he said. Even now, the numbers have not changed much. “On other apps, even before finishing one ride, they constantly ring with 10 more rides. Here, I get one booking in the 10 hours I work,” said Lal.

It’s been more than six months since Union Home and Cooperative Minister Amit Shah launched the government-backed Bharat Taxi app in a cut-throat ride-hailing market, but several drivers The Indian Express spoke to said bookings on the app have been far and few. Many have also cited high booking fares as the main reason.

On a Monday afternoon for instance, a cab from Connaught Place to the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport cost Rs 349 on Bharat Taxi compared to Rs 258 on Rapido.

Triloki Nath, 31, who mostly drives his cab in West Delhi, said: “There’s no bookings on it, usme bhi bohut customer daam dekhke cancel kar deta hai (which the customer cancels after seeing the price). Why will a customer choose a Rs 250 ride when he is getting one for Rs 180 elsewhere?” He added that he does not even open the app for many days at a stretch.

‘Not cheap, but driver-friendly’

Sources in Bharat Taxi confirmed that drivers get around 1.2-1.5 rides a day on average. In Delhi-NCR, daily bookings have gone up from approximately 10,000 in February to 25,000 in August, sources said. While 2.3 lakh drivers are registered on the platform in the region, roughly 1.5 lakh are active drivers.

A source in the company explained the rationale behind the fares, insisting that it is in the interest of drivers. “Our fares may not be the cheapest but they are driver-friendly and based on actual cost of the rides: including the CNG that the driver has to get filled, the EMI he has to pay for the car, and the maintenance he has to get done every once in a while,” the source said.

“We would urge drivers to be a little patient because Bharat Taxi’s success will mean drivers’ success”, the source added.

The company source also claimed that Bharat Taxi’s presence has forced other players in the market to offer better incentives and reduce driver subscriptions costs in certain markets. “The company also helps drivers in a number of other ways, like refinancing their loans at cheaper rates and providing them with health insurance, apart from the accident insurance. They will also get dividends if Bharat Taxi becomes profitable,” the source added.

The company spokesperson, responding to drivers’ complaints of few bookings, said, “As a growing cooperative platform, demand generation is our top priority. We are actively scaling customer adoption through localised marketing, targeted promotional campaigns, and strategic partnerships across all active markets. As passenger awareness expands, ride volume and daily allocations for our Sarathis are steadily increasing.”

Business ‘totally flat’

These assurances mean little to 60-year-old Jitender Kumar, whose car is fourth in the queue of the Kaali-Peeli (Black and yellow) taxis at the arrival area of Terminal-3 of the IGI Airport around 5 pm on a weekday. “I’ve been waiting in line here since morning and I will get my first ride after around one hour,” he said, adding that business is “totally flat”.

Shiv Shankar Sharma, who manages Bharat Taxi’s booths at the airport, said there are roughly 2,100 Kaali-Peeli cabs at the airport, while they do around 2,500-3,000 bookings every day.

But Kumar and other drivers claimed that they used to complete 3-4 rides a day before Bharat Taxi took over the pre-paid taxi booths at the airport, and earned around Rs 25,000 every month. Now, they get around 1-2 rides a day and earn between Rs 15,000-18,000 a month.

He also blamed technical issues apart from the high fares. “During peak evening time, the booking system at the booth stops working many times. Now, why will a person who is paying you more money than other rides wait for you to get the system correct? He will just go to the next option,” he said.

Nath also said his membership fee is getting wasted.

Bharat Taxi takes Rs 10 from every cab booking, if the driver is not a member. If the driver pays a non-refundable membership fee of Rs 500, only Rs 9 will get deducted from every four-wheeler ride.

Asked about the charge, a company spokesperson said, “Bharat Taxi remains strictly committed to a zero percentage-commission model, ensuring drivers retain their core earnings. The nominal fee of Rs 10 per ride is not a commission; it is an administrative charge introduced to support platform operations, technology maintenance, and app infrastructure in accordance with the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002, statutory regulations, and cooperative bye-laws. Additionally, these funds will directly power long-term welfare initiatives for our Sarathis.”

‘We’re looking at Tier 2, 3 cities’

Bharat Taxi is operated by Sahakar Taxi Cooperative Ltd (STCL), a multi-state cooperative society, in collaboration with National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), and supported by various entities, including Amul and NABARD. Representatives of these bodies form part of the interim board.

Vivek Pandey, Chief Operating Officer of Bharat Taxi said they are pushing aggressively into Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets where the bigger players may not necessarily have a strong presence.

“We are in 20 cities right now in Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, and we want to be in 100-125 cities by March 2027. Our eventual goal is to establish a presence in 500 cities in three years,” Pandey said.

Pandey added that their goal right now is to ensure supply-side availability of drivers and improve customer experience, which they have been able to do.

“We are in a startup phase, so we obviously want to gain as many customers as possible. But it will take some time breaking into a market where bigger players have been operating for more than a decade,” he said.