BHUBANESWAR: Ride-sharing platform Ola on Sunday launched emergency services in Twin City for commutation to 83 designated hospitals only. Denizens can book only Ola cabs for non-COVID-19 medical trips, where ambulance is not required. The service will, however, be open for doctors, nurses and paramedical staff.A fleet of 100 cabs were provided passes by RTO Bhubaneswar-1 for the purpose and the service commenced from 2.30 pm on Sunday.
As per the State Government order, the vehicles will not be allowed to carry more than one passenger. In case of patients, an attendant is allowed. “The vehicles should operate from point to point without any halt en-route to the designated 83 hospitals in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack,” the order read.
Ola has agreed to provide registration number, driver’s name and mobile number to RTO Bhubaneswar-1 and generate alert for any deviation, stoppage and route for abnormally taking more time. Drivers will have to upload photo and images of passengers’ IDs to their system for each trip. No passenger will be allowed to take a ride without photo I-card. Ola will work in close coordination with police control room.
An officer from RTO Bhubaneswar-1 will be monitoring Ola’s operation.
“This service covers only cabs. Ola auto and bikes are still suspended. You can’t book a ride for visiting places, except for hospitals,” said Birendra Mohapatra, senior manager of Ola’s Bhubaneswar branch. The network of cars are equipped with masks and sanitisers.The company claimed that the cars would be driven by specially trained persons.
To check deviation, the app has a built-in system in which it will not accept a ride if one of the pick up or drop locations is not a hospital. Earlier, similar services were launched in bigger cities like Bengaluru and New Delhi.
