The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) entered the mobility space with the addition of Namma Yatri, a Bengaluru-based auto-rickshaw booking app. The latest move by the government’s non-profit e-commerce platform is intended to assist small businesses in combating the growing dominance of giants such as Ola and Uber, which have been accused of increasing take rates over time.
Namma Yatri, whose technology was developed and launched by Juspay Technologies, a payment infrastructure startup backed by SoftBank and Accel, will initially have a 0% commission model, which is significantly lower than the around 20% that ride-hailing companies like Ola and Uber currently charge. However, in the coming months, the auto drivers’ app will launch a subscription model in which drivers will be required to pay a subscription fee to Juspay for software upkeep, either per trip or per day. However, the company stated that the fees would be less than the cost of a “cup of coffee,” and would be nowhere near what large players like Ola and Uber currently charge.
While the service is currently available only in Bengaluru, with ONDC’s help Namma Yatri plans to expand the offerings to multiple cities in the coming months. The portal will also get a further boost from the millions of users that Paytm and Snapdeal bring after their integration with ONDC. While Namma Yatri is a relatively new app, it has already onboarded over 45,000 drivers out of the total 150,000 auto drivers in the city. Vimal Kumar, CEO and founder of Juspay, said the app is adding about 200-300 drivers each day.
“It is critical to provide users with a seamless experience in order to make transportation convenient and affordable in our growing cities.” “Open systems like ONDC enable the collaboration and interoperability required to make it happen,” said Anurag Jain, secretary of the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, in a statement.
While Namma Yatri’s beta launch occurred in October, initial services were rolled out in November, and it was fully open for public use on March 16.
Kumar and Koshy of Juspay both dismissed any safety concerns. “Every driver onboarded by Namma Yatri will be fully KYC’ed, giving us a digital track record of which driver accepted a trip in which area,” Koshy explained.
ONDC’s entry into mobility comes shortly after it entered Flipkart and Amazon’s domains. ONDC currently processes 300 transactions per day with an average order value (AOV) of around Rs 300, falling just short of Meesho, another e-commerce platform with an AOV of Rs 400. This has increased from around 40 orders per day in December of last year.
