Karnataka doctors to commute in 500 Ola vehicles as company offers support to state government

Ola on Friday had announced a fund for drivers of auto-rickshaws, cabs, kaali-peeli taxis called ‘Drive the Driver Fund’ through its social welfare arm Ola Foundation.

Ride-hailing company Ola has decided to give 500 of its vehicles to the Karnataka government for state doctors to commute and other Covid-19 related activities, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan tweeted on Monday. In reply, Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal said “we are humbled to join hands with the GOK (Government of Karnataka) and other state governments in offering all support we can in these times. Ola’s driver-partners and Ola Foods kitchen staff are proud to join various essential service providers in fighting Corona.” Ola and Uber services are suspended during the current lockdown.

Ola on Friday had announced a fund for drivers of auto-rickshaws, cabs, kaali-peeli taxis called ‘Drive the Driver Fund’ through its social welfare arm Ola Foundation. The initial contribution stands at Rs 20 crore from the Ola Group and its employees while Aggarwal will also contribute one year salary to the fund. The support will be from “Ola group, investors and via a crowdfunding platform for citizens and other institution which intends to raise up to Rs 50 crore,” the company had said in a statement. Ola has also waived off lease rentals for drivers of Ola cabs owned by Ola’s subsidiary, Ola Fleet Technologies under its leasing program.

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The Coronavirus outbreak has brought services sector including online services to a halt. Even before the lockdown, mobility services including cabs, auto, and bike booking services declined 45-50 per cent during the first 15 days of March in comparison to the first 15 days of February. “Decline in cabs is highest followed by autos from week one itself. Bike market started seeing contraction this (third) week,” RedSeer said in its weekly update of Covid-19 impact on e-commerce.

However, in terms of the market share, the growth of multiple models in the mobility space such as bike taxis, autos, car or bike rentals, carpooling, last-mile mobility etc. are acquiring the share of a single user or sharing services of players such as Ola and Uber. The gross book value (GBV) of the online mobility space, which went up from $2.4 billion in 2018 to $2.9 billion last year, is seeing a gradual decline in the share of cab-hailing services, according to data from management consulting firm RedSeer. Even as cab-hailing services such as Ola and Uber lead the market but its GBV share has declined from 89 per cent in 2017 to 84 per cent in 2018 and further down to 76 per cent in 2019.