NAMMA YATRI: DRIVING A MULTIMODAL PLAY

With rivals adopting its no-commission model, the commuting app is looking for a new moat

- Sakshi Sadashiv

File photo of Namma Yatri's chief operating officer Shan M.S. (left) and chief executive officer Magizhan Selvan.

(SAKSHI SADASHIV/MINT)

For Priya Ramesh, a denizen of Bengaluru, the daily commute to work didn't start at the door, but on a screen, well before she stepped out. She always had three apps open: Uber, Ola and Rapido, the trinity that ruled mobility in the city. Fares would fluctuate, drivers cancel, and autos tease from the edge of the map never to arrive, in an ouroboros of hope and cancellation.

And then, in November 2022, Namma Yatri, another icon, in the mustard yellow and green livery of the city's autos, found its way onto Priya's home screen. The app seemed very modest but its promise was audacious: no commissions. For drivers, it meant they would pocket every rupee. For commuters, it meant less chances of cancellations and short wait times. And for ride-hailing operators, it was a shot across the bow-one they couldn't ignore, and eventually had to follow (the holdout, Uber, finally bit the bullet last week).

Namma Yatri was born out of the restlessness of Bengaluru's auto drivers, who had gone hoarse crying foul about their earnings being shaved by commissions, and their fares being dictated by algorithms. The Auto Rickshaw Drivers Union (ARDU), weary of this forced compromise, wanted a way to reclaim control. Namma Yatri was the alternative the drivers had been longing for.

Behind the upstart app was the heft of Juspay, a Bengaluru payments company that already ran the rails for millions of digital transactions, and the architecture of Beckn, the open protocol co-created by Nandan Nilekani to keep digital markets free from monopoly.

"The core belief was simple that the people doing the real work should take home most of what the customer pays. That's where it all started," said Shan M.S., Namma Yatri's co-founder.