Feb. 24: His 18-month-old son would call two-wheelers "dabadigo". Doting dad Jijo Nag decided a novelty business deserved a novel name and thus was born dabadigo, the country's first app-based electric scooter rental service.
This was last November and Jijo, winner of the Infocom Future Leadership Award for 2016, has since grown his fleet of Hero Optima Plus electric scooters to 10. Four of these are new and will hit the road once their batteries arrive next week.
The dabadigo app allows any registered user to book an e-scooter like you would an Ola or Uber cab, pick up the two-wheeler from the designated pick-up point, ride it for the day and drop it off at the nearest listed location. And all this for Rs 45 an hour, or Rs 302 for 12 hours.
"These scooters run on 250-watt batteries and can travel at a maximum speed of 25kmph," Jijo said. "They are zero emission and one full charge can take you up to 60km, although it is hard to get that far in Calcutta."
Since e-scooters are not under the purview of the motor vehicles act yet, you do not need a driver's licence and a helmet to ride one. But Jijo insists on every rider wearing the helmet provided with an e-scooter. He also prefers to have a trial run for new customers. "My delivery boys follow these first-time customers on separate scooters to check if they are comfortable riding the vehicle."
Like app cabs, all e-scooter rides through dabadigo are trackable on a mobile phone. "My wife Reshmi developed the app for me while the coding was outsourced," Jijo said.
So, how has the ride been so far? According to Jijo, his dabadigo has done more than 500 trips since the app went live less than four months ago.
Students of Jadavpur University, South City College, Jaipuria College and Gokhale College are among Jijo's loyal clientele along with some B2B customers like restaurants, home delivery and hyper local delivery services. Based on feedback, dabadigo is looking to add faster e-scooters to the fleet for commercial customers. "There are e-scooters above 250 watts for this category," Jijo said.
He is confident that e-scooters are the future in cities battling environmental concerns, road congestion and a heavy burden on public transport. "The future is about electric and shared transport. The most sustainable intra-city urban mode of transportation would be e-scooters. They are very popular in Paris, San Francisco, Mexico City, Berlin and Barcelona."
The Indian market itself has seven million potential users and Jijo plans to scale up his business to places like Goa, Durgapur and other tier-II cities. After doing his MBA at Michigan State University, Jijo had stints with Citizens Bank, AAA and Motorola before returning to India in 2011.
His reason for returning home is a familiar one. "I have ageing parents to look after and so does my wife," said Jijo, who ran his father's car tubes business on his return.
