Ola & Uber Rival: Centre To Begin Piloting Bharat Taxi Next Month

The Centre will reportedly begin piloting the new state-backed ride-hailing service, called “Bharat Taxi”, in New Delhi later next month. 

Officials told NDTV that the service will begin operations in the national capital with 650 vehicles. As per the report, the platform will be rolled out to other major cities by December this year. 

More than 5,000 drivers, both men and women, are reportedly expected to participate in the initial nationwide testing phase. The platform will then be gradually expanded to 20 other cities, including Pune, Bhopal, Lucknow, and Jaipur, over the course of 2026. 

The government has reportedly internally set a target of establishing Bharat Taxi’s operations in several metro regions by March 2026. The Centre eventually plans to onboard 1 Lakh drivers on the platform, spanning district headquarters and multiple rural areas, by 2030. 

Taking on giants like Ola and Uber directly, Bharat Taxi will operate under the aegis of the Union cooperation ministry and National e-Governance Division (NeGD). The platform will reportedly offer drivers full ownership of their earnings while offering commuters a state-supervised alternative to private cab aggregators.

Notably, Bharat Taxi will be housed under a cooperative entity, called Sahakar Taxi Cooperative Limited (STCL). As part of this, the NeGD recently signed an MoU with the cooperative company and a council has been formed to govern it. 

While dairy giant AMUL’s managing director Jayen Mehta has been elected as the chairman of the STCL, National Cooperative Development Corporation deputy MF Rohit Gupta was chosen as vice-chairman of the cooperative. 

This comes weeks after NeGD signed a pact with STCL to offer inputs on user interface design, multilingual capabilities, and integration of Bharat Taxi platform with other digital platforms such as DigiLocker and UMANG. The duo will also cooperate on the building security and compliance infrastructure for the app. 

This comes seven months after home minister Amit Shah announced the launch of a new state-backed ride-hailing service. At the time, Shah said that the platform will onboard two-wheeler taxis, rickshaws, as well as four-wheeler taxis. 

Bharat Taxi is now being jointly promoted by leading cooperative and financial institutions including NCDC, IFFCO, AMUL, among others. 

“India’s mobility landscape is set for a major transformation with the upcoming launch of Bharat Taxi in December 2025. The step aims to transform (the) mobility ecosystem with a cooperative-driven, transparent, and citizen-first ride-hailing platform,” the Centre said last month.

The launch of the platform comes at a time when ride-hailing platforms have come under fire for all the wrong reasons. Both Ola and Uber continue to face backlash over high commissions, erratic earnings and lack of transparency for drivers. Drivers have often protested against the platforms over the last few years, demanding fair platform commissions and higher earnings.

On the consumer side, users often complain about surge pricing and ride cancellations.  

The new platform may alleviate some of the pain points as drivers will likely be able to take home all their earnings, without hefty commissions. End customers will potentially get to avail cheaper rides.