Odisha’s AMA E-Ride service is creating transport jobs for women drivers while providing first- and last-mile connectivity to AMA Bus stops in Bhubaneswar.
Launched in 2022 by Capital Region Urban Transport, the service charges Rs 10 per ride and operates on 13 feeder routes in the city.
Drivers say the scheme offers fixed income, safer hours and more independence, but low pay, limited leave and lack of medical support remain concerns.
CRUT says the service is being expanded to other Odisha cities, even as only 38 of its original 50 e-rickshaws are currently operational.
Three years ago, 41-year-old Sabita Bhoi left her job as a room attendant at a hotel in Bhubaneswar for a career she believed would offer more independence and a predictable work schedule. Today, she drives an electric rickshaw under Odisha’s AMA E-Ride service, ferrying passengers to and from AMA Bus stops in the state capital.
Bhoi had worked at Mayfair Lagoon hotel for about eight years before making the shift. “After the introduction of AMA E-Ride, an NGO approached us and explained the initiative,” she told Down To Earth (DTE). “It sounded better, with nobody to boss us around, less pressure and an eight-hour duty without night shifts. After three months of training in soft skills and driving, we received an e-rickshaw.”
Launched in May 2022 by Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT), Odisha’s public transport agency, AMA E-Ride was designed to provide clean and affordable first- and last-mile connectivity in BhubAaneswar by linking commuters to AMA Bus stops.
CRUT, the Odisha government’s public transport agency under the Housing and Urban Development Department, operates AMA Bus, formerly Mo Bus, and AMA E-Ride services. The agency says it aims to provide integrated, affordable and sustainable urban transport.
The service reserves all the driver positions, known as Sarathis, for women, transgender people and people from disadvantaged or marginalised groups. DTE saw only women drivers during its reporting, something acknowledged by CRUT managing director Mohammad Sadique Alam.
It is the first public transport agency in India to operate its own fleet of e-rickshaws, according to CRUT. The service currently operates on 13 feeder routes in Bhubaneswar, including Prashanti Vihar, Patiagada, Sailashree Vihar, SUM Hospital, ITER, Pokhariput, Infocity, KIIT Square, AIIMS Hospital, Kalinga Nagar, Damana Square and Jagamara.
AMA E-Ride charges a flat fare of Rs 10 per ride. AMA Bus services operate across Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Khordha, Pipili, Puri, Konark and Rourkela.
“First- and last-mile connectivity is the biggest challenge for urban mobility,” Alam told DTE in Bhubaneswar. “Our e-ride scheme takes people from their homes and feeds them to the bus station. The frequency also matches, and the service is synchronised with bus timings.”
Bhoi drives on the 1.78 kilometre ER-9 route around KIIT Square and carries about 60 to 80 passengers a day. She receives a monthly salary of Rs 15,500 and four days of paid leave.
“We are not bound by the number of passengers because we receive a monthly salary,” she said. “But it is not sufficient. A day off beyond the entitled leave leads to a pay cut. We are required to leave a station within 10 to 15 minutes if we have at least one rider in the e-rickshaw.”
According to Alam, AMA E-Ride began with a fleet of 50 e-rickshaws. Only 38 are currently operational because of repairs and an inadequate workforce, he said.
For 38-year-old Sanjukta Dagar, the work has helped ease her family’s financial burden. A homemaker until 2022, she now drives an AMA E-Ride e-rickshaw on the 2.8 kilometre ER-8 route around Infocity.
“I have four daughters and one son, and my eldest is in her final year of BA,” she said. “My husband is a painter and earns around Rs 12,000 to Rs 15,000 a month. With my salary, the financial stress is a little less.”
But the work is physically demanding. Dagar said she makes around 22 trips during an eight-hour shift and has developed persistent pain in her knees and back. She sometimes wears a waist belt for support.
“We do not get medical or other facilities,” she said. “CRUT only pays us salary and gives four days off a month.”
CRUT is considering a public-private partnership model to expand the service, Alam said.
“Under the proposed model, CRUT will continue to synchronise e-rickshaw services with bus schedules while making the system more financially viable and easier to scale,” he said.
AMA E-Ride has recently been introduced in Sambalpur and is planned for other cities, including Rourkela, Cuttack, Keonjhar, Angul, Jharsuguda, Bhadrak, Balasore and Baripada.
Future deployment will be demand-driven, Alam said, with the number of e-rickshaws in each city determined by local requirements rather than a fixed allocation.
About 70km from Bhubaneswar, in Puri, CRUT provides technical assistance to an e-rickshaw service of nearly 20 vehicles, Alam said. The service is maintained by the municipal corporation and partly funded by the Jagannath Temple Trust, but CRUT does not directly operate the fleet.
Unlike Bhubaneswar’s centrally managed AMA E-Ride network, Puri’s e-rickshaw system is more decentralised and driven by small operators. The pilgrimage town, known for the Jagannath Temple, the annual Ratha Yatra and Puri Beach, has a large number of private e-rickshaw drivers serving hotels, the beach, railway station, bus stand and temple area.
One such driver is 25-year-old P Rakesh Behera, who left his job as a helper at a garment store four years ago because of low wages and pressure from his manager.
For the first two years, he leased an e-rickshaw and paid Rs 800 a day as rent.
“That was almost half of what I earned,” he said. “After I bought my own e-rickshaw two years ago, I now earn about Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 a day in just four hours. I work only from 2pm to 4pm, and there is nobody to boss me around.”
Behera charges between Rs 20 and Rs 100 per passenger, depending on the route. Fares from the bus stand or railway station to the Jagannath Temple are around Rs 20 during the off-season, but can rise sharply during the Ratha Yatra.
His vehicle operates under the Sri Sri Dashrathidev and Thakur Sitaramdas Omkarnath Dev Sevashram e-rickshaw union, a local transport association in Puri that coordinates e-rickshaw services around ashrams and religious sites linked to spiritual leader Sitaramdas Omkarnath.
Behera said the union has about 32 e-rickshaws in Puri. “There are as many as 12 to 15 such e-rickshaw unions in the city, with some operating fleets of up to 80 vehicles,” he said.
As of June 23, 2026, Odisha had registered 2,974 e-rickshaws out of 51,383 registered electric vehicles across two-, three- and four-wheeler categories, according to the Vahan dashboard of the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
In 2025-26, e-rickshaw registrations rose to about 6,901, accounting for 7.5 per cent of the state’s 92,364 registered electric two-, three- and four-wheelers.