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The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), the government-backed technology protocol based on open standards to promote online transactions, has onboarded Bengaluru’s latest autorickshaw-booking app Namma Yatri.

With this, ONDC enters a new avenue—hyperlocal mobility—putting it in line to compete with Ola, Uber and Rapido that aren’t yet on the platform.

Since its launch last year, the technology protocol has had a larger focus on the food and grocery segment.

“An open mobility network on ONDC will build a large ecosystem of customers and service providers, fuelling many innovations and possibilities,” said T Koshy, CEO of ONDC.

“First, it increases customer convenience by digitising and integrating all mobility services,” he added. “Then, it provides equal opportunities to mobility players of all sizes and between existing and new players. It also helps drivers and service providers to earn a livelihood not beholden to platform interests.”

The partnership impact

Namma Yatri is built on an open source platform and charges no commission from drivers for the services delivered. According to the company, more than 45,000 drivers and 450,000 customers have used the platform.

Through this partnership, the expectation is that significantly more people will discover and use Namma Yatri.

Namma Yatri is built and launched by Juspay Technologies, a Bengaluru-based technology startup with focus on the financial services sector. It was launched in November in collaboration with Beckn Foundation, a non-profit supported by Nandan Nilekani for developing open protocol specifications for mobility and ecommerce platforms.

“We built Namma Yatri with similar principles. The vision of Namma Yatri is to enable service providers with open and cost-effective tech products and the principles to be customer-centric,” Juspay Founder and CEO Vimal Kumar said.

Currently, Namma Yatri is present only in Bengaluru, although there are plans to take it to other locations in the country.

The app recently became 100% open, and called for citizens’ collective participation. It currently clocks nearly 100,000 weekly trips and intends to amplify its growth by being part of the ONDC network.

Namma Yatri will also be holding a hackathon along with ONDC and Beckn Foundation to generate innovative and sustainable mobility solutions.