In an official statement, popular cab aggregator Ola has announced that it has introduced electric rickshaws or e-rickshaws as one of the options on its app.
The statement said, The first Ola e-rickshaw was booked on the Ola mobile application by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the launch of Stand Up India initiative aimed at promoting entrepreneurship. A total of 5,100 Ola e-rickshaws (are) launched in partnership with Bhartiya Micro Credit (BMC) at the event and deployed across Delhi, and suburban Gurgaon, Noida, Faridabad and Ghaziabad.
Speaking about this, a senior company executive said, The transportation needs of users in smaller towns and sustainable alternatives for cycle-rickshaw peddlers, will be solved with the introduction of e-rickshaws on the Ola app, which are affordable, environment friendly.
At the launch of the Stand Up India initiative, Prime Minister Narendra Modi handed over 5100 e rickshaws. Speaking at the event, Mr. Modi said, Earlier, manual rickshaw-pullers had to toil hard and earned much less. Now they can earn more with less labour by running e-rickshaws. Also, they would not have to pay anything as rent of the rickshaw. Instead, by paying out a small amount daily, they would become the owners of their e-rickshaw. Energy banks have also been established for these e-rickshaw drivers where they can charge batteries with solar energy. The entire initiative is environment friendly.