Meru Cab rolls out cheaper taxi service ‘Genie’ in Hyderabad
Genie's fares will be lower at `16 per km for travel in hatchbacks compared with Meru that charges `21 per km and uses sedans
Hyderabad: Radio taxi operator Meru Cab Co. Pvt. Ltd will test a new taxi service, ‘Genie’, offering cheaper intra-city transport aimed at mid-segment commuters in Hyderabad before rolling it out across other cities in the country.
Genie’s fares will be lower at ₹ 16 per kilometre for travel in hatchbacks compared with Meru that charges higher fares ( ₹ 21 per kilometre) and uses sedans.
“We are hoping autorickshaw users will migrate to this service," said Neeraj Gupta, managing director of V-Link Fleet Solutions Pvt. Ltd, the holding company of Meru Cab.
The introduction of the hatchback service will help Meru expand its fleet and enter newer markets, Gupta said. “Because the demand for premium cars is lesser, we are not able to expand. With this we can expand the fleet," he said on Wednesday.
Mid-segment commuters comprise a large chunk of ₹ 5,000-crore organized taxi market in India, according to Siddhartha Pahwa, chief executive officer of Meru Cab.
After pilot-testing the mid-segment taxi service in Hyderabad, Genie will expand to Delhi and Bangalore and explore newer markets such as Lucknow, Indore, Chandigarh and Visakhapatnam, Pahwa said.
Genie’s fleet will comprise of hatchbacks such as Tata Motors Ltd’s Indica and Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Ltd’s Etios Liva. In contrast, Meru operates sedans including Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd’s Verito.
Genie will initially operate 50 vehicles in its fleet and expand to 500 in Hyderabad over the next nine months, Pahwa said. The cheaper taxi service will have a dedicated call centre team, separate from its parent, although it will use the same technologies, including digital meters, automated e-bill and GPS tracking, as Meru.
Meru is one of the largest taxi operators in the country, operating a fleet of 6,000 cabs. Taxi operators, organized and unorganized, run around 2 million vehicles in India.
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