Delhi engineers built an indigenous app during the lockdown
Recently launched GARRUD, an aggregator app for commercial vehicles by two Delhi engineers following the ban on Chinese tools, is expanding fast across India’s US$215 billion logistics market.
“India is growing by leaps and bounds and we at GARRUD want to be protagonists in this transition to the sustainable, fast, economic growth of our country by supporting the government in ease of doing business,” said one of the app founders, Rohit Kumar, highlighting the need for the cause of the truck drivers.
“A single truck driver is helpless, but when he signs up on a digital platform like ours, he is not alone, and a force of 10,000 would be definitely one to reckon with,” said Kumar explaining the app capabilities in a release on 23 Dec 2020.
Added the second founder Uttam Yadav, “At GARRUD, we manifold the productivity in logistics with the collaboration of available resources, vast market-place and exponentially growing technology by creating a smart junction.”
Currently operational only in the Delhi NCR region, GARRUD is expected to spread its wings pan-India in the coming year.
Only a week old (as of 23 Dec 2020), GARRUD has already completed over 1,000 trips since its launch. The app already has 5,000+ downloads from both ends of the spectrum, said GARRUD in a release.
The app enables customers to directly get in touch with transporters for their logistic needs. In turn, it serves both ends of the spectrum, the truck drivers who are in need of business and the small business owners who need to transport material.
Truck drivers generally go to designated areas or nakas (cross road sections/meet up points) and wait for business owners needing to transport materials. But during the pandemic, a lot of businesses themselves were badly hit, in turn rendering the truck drivers jobless.
For some businesses that did thrive, it was difficult to find transport. Identifying the need to bridge this gap, and passionately believing in the ‘Vocal for Local’ mantra, Kumar and Yadav soon gave up their corporate jobs and got down to developing GARRUD.
The app in its first phase was launched for the intracity movement in Delhi NCR.
Developed in the lockdown period, it attempts to address the woos faced by the transporters as well as the small business houses, by bringing the highly unorganized transport sector in India under the Digital India umbrella.
After the Indian Government decided to ban Chinese origin apps, riding the anti-China sentiment, this indigenous Indian company set out to make truck drivers ‘Atmanirbhar’. Backed by a strong team of around 25 people from a transport background, GARRUD has already onboarded over 2,500 truck drivers by convincing them to be a part of digital India.
Their portfolio now consists of 200+Bikes, 850+ Tata Ace vehicles, 250+Pickups, 500+3-wheelers, 150+Eco Vans,50+14 ft trailers and is still counting.
Commercial vehicles for a premier same-day, last-mile delivery are available with a single click of the app.
In its next leg, this bootstrapped start-up has plans to bridge the gap between demand and supply, through media promotions and marketing initiatives to attract B2C (Retail), by targetting approximately 60 lakh families across Delhi and NCR.
The app allows anyone who owns or operates commercial vehicles to join the platform and individuals and businesses who are in need of transport services to hire them through it via a single interface.
From bikes to tempos to 22-feet trailers, the app, with over 50 AI features, allows users to track rides they have hired in real-time. GARRUD aims to make all single motor maliks (drivers who owned as well as drove their own vehicles) Atmanirbhar. #technologies #investment #logistics /fiinews.com
