Tired of being harassed by auto-rickshaw drivers who don’t go by the metre or refuse to take you to your destination? You can now book an auto- rickshaw with just a tap of a finger through apps of companies such as Ola and Uber and avoid arguments with drivers over fares. They not only arrive at your doorstep on time, but also ply by the metre.

You can even pay the fare through a mobile wallet, in case you are not carrying enough cash. For example, Ola Money (digital wallet) offers 50 per cent cash back on all rides if you paythrough it.

Taxi aggregators such as Ola and Uber are leaving no stone unturned to rope in more customers and are now pushing their apps for auto-rickshaws, especially in cities such as Delhi and Mumbai.

“Autos are one of the most ubiquitous modes of personal transportation in the cities. The Ola app allows customers to book autos with one touch, without having to step out to find one. Also, it gives tens of thousands of auto drivers continued access to demand and increased revenue like never before,” Anand Subramanian, Senior Director - Marketing Communications, Ola, told BusinessLine .

He said the company plans to get more autos on board in more cities soon. Ola is adding around 700 autos a day and as of now it has more than 65,000 autos on its platform in Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Pune and Hyderabad, he said.

“Ola has made an age-old Indian local transportation medium an important part of smarter urban transport option, purely from the perspective that there was so much potential to earn for drivers and convenience for customers that had been left untouched for all these years,” Subramanian said.

The service not only benefits consumers, but also auto drivers, whose income is increasing by over 40 per cent month-on-month, he added.

“I don’t have to run idle looking for customers. My income has increased by 40 per cent month on month after getting attached to Ola, and the payments come on time. It is a totally different experience,” said Mintu Singh, an Ola-attached auto driver in Delhi.

Expansion mode Uber, too, has roped in auto drivers to serve its customers with the app called UberAuto. However, the company has limited the service to only Delhi as of now.

“Uber is currently available in 22 cities. However, the UberAuto option is currently available only in Delhi. This year, we doubled our footprint in six weeks and have aggressive expansion targets in the months ahead,” a company spokesperson said.

The company said it has ‘thousands’ of auto-rickshaw drivers who are attached to its platform in Delhi and more auto-rickshaw and former auto drivers are signing up to use Uber's technology every week.

According to analysts tracking the sector, many other apps are mushrooming in the auto-rickshaw segment. Apps such as AutoNcab, Pooch-O (started by Delhi Integrated Multi-Model Transit System) and Jugnoo Autos are big in the competition, too.

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