If you ever had a tiring late-night work at office someday and all the public vehicles have stopped its operation and if you go and search for the taxi, it is very hard to find and by chance, if you found they will ask you for a double amount of money it would even cost. Then how irritating it would be to go home walking?
Sarathi Cab, a company established in 2016 which started its operation in 2017, is a tech platform to provide the taxi users make their ride easier and cheaper. Sarathi cab was established being mainly focused on providing easy, cheap and quality services to the customer. There are currently 26 team members who are running the company. This Company was registered two years ago in 2016 and in the mean gap time they did a lot of market researches to make their company get their goal and started its operation in late 2017.
Story behind its initiation
‘Sarathi’ is derived from the Sanskrit word which means charioteer in Sanskrit. In the ancient myth story of Mahabharata, Krishna was Arjuna’s Sarathi. In this religious story Krishna showed right path to Arjuna, when Arjuna was in unpleasant situation. Sarathi founders, Mr. Ravi Singhal and Mr. Prakash Neupane, thought Sarathi would be a perfect name for their company because they wanted their drivers to be the ideal drivers for the Sarathi Cab users.
“Sarathi is not a new innovation, it has already been initiated earlier in many developed countries but in Nepal, this has not been in operation any many people are facing lots of taxi ride problems which lead us to start the business.” said Mr. Ravi Singhal, the founder of Sarathi. If we ever want to go out with friends for a late night party somewhere half of the energy and the joy for the party wastes in bargaining with the taxi driver as they don’t have any fixed price and they don’t want to go in meter rating. So, facing and seeing those kinds of problems in the society the founders of Sarathi Cab have been giving their best efforts in giving the taxi riders as quality services as they can, as you can book your cabs whenever you want in a reasonable price. “For solving the taxi ride problems which the Nepali society is facing since a long time, we initiated the idea of Sarathi Cab which is already in practice in other developed countries.” added Mr. Singhal.
Sarathi is not just a service provided to the customers but also the opportunities for the taxi drivers and taxi owners. If anybody wants to join Sarathi Cab there are two methods Full ownership and Percentage Basis. “For the full ownership the taxi owners give the taxi and fixed amount is provided to the owners and rest amount is distributed to the drivers wherein the percentage basis we provide system ad customers and work with them in the percentage basis.” shares Mr. Singhal.
Inspiration
The main inspiration for initiating Sarathi Cab was the problems of the taxi price and availability of the taxi. In the valley, most of the taxi doesn’t follow the rate given by the government and it is really hard to get the taxi as well which is the critical problems all the taxi users are facing daily. “If someone is really sick and have to take hospital it is really hard to find the taxi nearby, it gets hard when you get in confusion whether to be with the person or go to search taxi to take the person hospital. So, it would be really easy if the taxi comes to your gate in a dial with a reasonable rate.”shares Mr. Singhal.
Challenges in the beginning phase
Taxi business is a monopoly business. There were lots of organizations and government sectors working for it; Sarathi cab had to go through lots of obstacles during the beginning periods like meter rating, customer’s feedback and all. They also had to face with lots of taxi business groups as the taxi businessmen were claiming that they were overtaking their business. Mr. Singhal mentions “We also got pressure from lots of taxi business organizations.”
Response from the Customers
“Until the date, the responses for the customers are pretty good but it depends on how we measure the feedback of the customers. There are lots of negative feedbacks also which helps us in improving the quality of service that we provide. The demand of Sarathi Cab is six times higher than the supply we can currently provide; from where we can say the responses from the customers are positive and customers are willing to use the cabs repeatedly.” said Mr. Ravi Singhal, founder of Sarathi Cab.
Future Plans
They are going to launch the Sarathi Bikes which is already in process. Sarathi is mainly focused on involving 30%-40% of taxies to Sarathi Cab with that to reach the streamline of 9000+ cabs in Kathmandu valley and expand their business out of the valley. In soon coming to future Sarathi Cab is also aiming to compete for its initiation at International Level with the Quality of service they provide. They are now launching their Sarathi Cab apps soon and also planning to install the pos machine in all the Sarathi Cabs.
Message to the Youths
“You will meet lots of people with lots of excuses, but never let yourself down. We just need to think how to convert this problem into a solution which itself creates an opportunity. Let’s start now never wait for something miracle to happen.”- Founder of Sarathi, Mr. Ravi Singhal
By: Rojal Rajthala
Startups to support skills #skills2grow4life
