Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Saturday, 27 June launched Bharat Taxi in Gujarat, marking the cooperative ride-hailing platform's formal entry into the state. The event, held at the Mahatma Mandir Convention Centre in Gandhinagar, also saw Shah outline plans to scale the service to 125 cities and 30 major urban centres across India by March 2027.

Key Developments at the Launch

The event was attended by Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi, senior state ministers, cooperative leaders, and thousands of drivers — referred to by the platform as 'Sarathis'. A series of Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) were also exchanged with public sector and institutional partners to strengthen Bharat Taxi's operations across the state.

The agreements were signed with the Gujarat Metro Rail Corporation, Gujarat State Cooperative Bank, Adani Airport Holdings Limited, the Western Railway's Ahmedabad Division, the Airports Authority of India for Surat, Rajkot, and Vadodara airports, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, and the Gujarat State Traffic Branch of the police. Organisers said these tie-ups would integrate taxi services with metro stations, railway facilities, airports, and urban transport infrastructure.

Platform Growth and the Cooperative Model

Bharat Taxi Chairman and GCMMF Managing Director Dr Jayen Mehta described the launch as a milestone for the cooperative sector, stating the initiative rests on the principle that drivers should also be owners. He noted the platform had grown rapidly since its launch on 5 February this year.

'In less than five months, nearly seven lakh Sarathis have joined us, while 38 to 40 lakh customers have registered on our app. At present, we are active in only two to three states,' Mehta said. He added that Gujarat alone had already enrolled more than 1.5 lakh drivers and over 7 lakh customers ahead of the formal state launch.

The platform operates on a cooperative ownership model under which drivers are stakeholders rather than commission-paying partners. It also offers a WhatsApp-based airport booking service, has established Sarathi Assistance Centres, and has tied up with the State Bank of India to facilitate vehicle loans at concessional interest rates. Agreements with electric vehicle manufacturers have also been signed to support cleaner transport.

Expansion Roadmap

The statewide rollout will initially cover Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Anand, Bhavnagar, Amreli, Mehsana, Jamnagar, and Valsad, with further expansion planned across the state. Nationally, the platform aims to reach the capitals of 30 major states and more than 125 cities within one year.

Mehta invoked the origins of the cooperative movement to contextualise the ambition, noting that Amul had started with just two village milk cooperatives and 250 litres of milk before growing into the world's largest cooperative organisation with an annual turnover exceeding ₹1 lakh crore. 'The concept of Sahkar Taxi is a new vision for the cooperative sector,' he said.

What It Means for Drivers and Passengers

The platform's model is designed so that, in Mehta's words, 'every rupee spent by a customer should go directly into the bank account of our Sarathi brothers' — a direct contrast to the commission-based structures of private aggregators such as Ola and Uber. This comes amid growing nationwide discontent among cab drivers over high platform commissions and lack of welfare benefits.

Notably, the launch was timed just before the completion of five years of the Ministry of Cooperation, which Shah heads. With cooperative institutions now entering mobility, fintech, and retail, the ministry is visibly expanding the cooperative model well beyond its traditional agricultural base. How effectively Bharat Taxi scales beyond its early adopter states will be closely watched by both the cooperative sector and the broader ride-hailing industry.