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

The article reports on a new ride-hailing service, “Bharat Taxi”, initiated by the government via a cooperative structure. The pilot is targeted to start in Delhi in November 2025 with around 650 vehicles, and then expand to about 20 cities including Jaipur, Pune, Bhopal and Lucknow by 2026. This service is structured to compete with the likes of Ola and Uber by offering a zero-commission model to drivers, who pay a nominal membership fee instead. The vehicle owners are to become members of a cooperative — the Multi-State Sahakari Taxi Cooperative Ltd (registered June 2025 with ~₹300 cr authorised capital) — backed by multiple registered cooperatives and overseen by a council chaired by the MD of GCMMF (Amul) and the Deputy MD of NCDC. The pilot will integrate into the digital ecosystem via DigiLocker/UMANG. The initiative reflects a government push to empower driver earnings, build a domestically-owned aggregator model, and ensure transparent pricing, safety and cooperative ownership, signalling policy interest in disrupting private ride-hailing dominance and giving more focus to gig-worker welfare.