Rapido, India’s largest bike taxi platform, joined the fight against COVID-19 in Chennai by vaccinating its Captains (Driver Partners) in a free vaccination drive conducted in the city. The country’s third largest ride sharing player partnered with the Chennai City Corporation to vaccinate the on-road COVID warriors, that are part of the essential ride-sharing and delivery fleet, including the specially abled Captains.
The Captains were administered the first dose of Covishield. All required precautions, safety measures and post Vaccination protocols were followed to ensure protection of the frontline workers in the city. All vaccinated drivers will be administered the second dose as per the defined period of 80 days between two doses.
On the launch of the #RapidoCaptainVaccination program, Pavan Guntupalli, Co-Founder, Rapido, said, “Vaccination is a key step in our country’s fight against the pandemic. As one of the leading players in the Indian mobility and ride sharing ecosystem, we take our commitment to safeguarding our customers and Captains through this Vaccination drive. While bike taxis themselves are an open and safe way to commute during the pandemic, we are providing another layer of protection to our Captains and users, through our fist vaccination drive in Chennai. We thank the Chennai City Corporation to help us put this drive together to vaccinate our Helmet Heroes, who are working hard to keep our customers safe.”
Rapido plans to have additional vaccination drives in the city as per the availability of the vaccination stocks. It is also exploring more such partnerships in other cities where Rapido is present in, to organise free vaccination drives in the coming months for the Captains.
The company announced several initiatives towards maintaining safety and following guidelines to protect the customer and the Captain, including the innovative Safety Back Shields for bike taxi rides. The Captains are expected to sanitize and clean the vehicle and all customer accessible areas, post every ride, along with mandatory usage of masks during the entire ride by the Captains and the passengers.