Saharsa(Bihar): It's a scene straight out of a potboiler - a rickshaw puller-turned-cab company owner. Meet real-life hero Dilkush Kumar, a resident of Bihar's Saharsa district who runs the 'Rodbez' cab company, which positions itself as a one-way and taxi pool platform.
The 29-year-old Kumar was pulling a rickshaw in Delhi and selling vegetables in Patna. Today, he employs many professionals in his company. Kumar now runs two companies. He founded 'AryaGo' in the year 2016 and after that he came up with the idea of 'RodBez', which boasts of having 4,000 cars in its network.
Dilkhush has studied till intermediate (class XII). His father Pawan Khan was a bus driver. The villagers used to say that the son of a bus driver would become a bus driver, but Dilkhush proved them wrong. Dilkhush who moved to Delhi in search of jobs could not land any. He started pulling rickshaws. He fell sick. He returned home and decided to do something different.
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Then, he took a loan of 5.5 lakhs from the seed fund of the Bihar government under the startup scheme and started the cab service in October 2016 under the name AryaGo. Apart from Saharsa, it has a network up to the neighbouring districts of Supaul and Darbhanga.
Following positive responses, Dilkhush handed over the responsibility of 'AryaGo' to his wife and other associates. Last year, he ideated and formed another company-'Roadways' which was christened as 'RodBez'(a dialectical way of pronouncing 'Roadways').
"At least 1.25 billion litres of fuel is being wasted daily in the country because most drivers only get one-way passengers when they go to another city. Our aim is to develop a community of cab drivers that will cover all cities of the country. We are developing such technologies with the help of software engineers, in which the data of drivers of other cab service companies will also be there. This will help the users hail cabs in the cities where we do not have our service yet," said Dilkhush.
Dilkhush further said, "The motive behind starting Bihar's longest one-way taxi chain is simple. This app can help save up to 40-60 per cent in cab booking fare for the users while cutting down on burning fuel. It also increases the earnings of cabbies by Rs.10,000 -15,000."
