In India, for persons-with-disabilities, life is filled with unpleasant scenarios — most struggle to live fulfilling independent lives, unable to do something as trivial as finding a disabled friendly public places, to something as critical as not being able to secure a job. As a result, today, more than 90 percent of these people are below the poverty line. People with disabilities form a sizeable percentage of India's population and are increasingly looking for ways to empower themselves and stand on their feet. Opportunities, however, are very limited. Disability often closes the door to educational and professional opportunities.
Rapido is working on a new initiative to empower people with disabilities by providing them with employment opportunities. Rapido has started this initiative in Chennai with 50 physically handicapped captains on-board. They can earn up to 30,000 per month. They also have an option to work at flexible timings. Rapido provides accidental insurance cover up to 5 lakhs to riders.
Sharavana Kumar, Regional Manager at Rapido, says “The Rapido concept is based around providing economical, convenient and high-quality transport facilities for solo commuters, especially those who need to travel far or have to get somewhere quickly. In doing so, we are already employing so many youngsters. We have all kind of people working with us in part time and full time basis. Person with disability are often neglected and find difficulty in securing a job in this highly competitive environment. The main objective of this initiative is to provide employment opportunities to such people. We want to empower people with disabilities so that they can contribute to economic growth. All they need is an opportunity. We have a target of on-boarding 1000+ physically handicapped captains in next 3 months in Tamil Nadu alone. In order to achieve this ambitious goal, we are tying up with NGOs which are working towards the welfare of these people. We are also planning to provide financial support to the people who are interested to work with us but doesn’t own a vehicle. Our Tamil Nadu Operations head Gopidas will lead this project.”
India’s largest Bike taxi service, Rapido is now operational across 80 cities in India. The main aim of Rapido is to provide economical, cost-effective, fuel-efficient and time-saving transport. The organization wants to tackle the issues that commuters face due to heavy traffic conditions, especially during rush hours. Compared to the other cab booking apps, Rapido Bike App is by far the most efficient iteration for Indian roads offering commuters an alternative option of a bike instead of owned vehicles or private taxis to navigate through traffic snarls quickly and reach their destination on time.
Currently, in Tamil Nadu the services are spread across 5 cities. The cities operational are Chennai, Coimbatore, Trichy, Madurai and Salem with close to 100,000 captains on-board and a whopping customer base of close to 1,000,000 across these cities.
