GadgetByte Nepal

This year I did not have Dashain (Rest in Peace, grandmum) and the floods and landslides all across the country killed the mood for travel too. Given that, I had nothing much to do on the holidays. So, I decided to change my collar, hop onto my scooter, and churn some extra income — off I went, to become an InDrive rider…

InDrive For Extra Income Overview

Registering

Enrolling yourself as an “InDrive MOTOR-BIKE Hero” is actually very easy! (I don’t understand what’s up with corporate and their corny job titles, seriously?)

So, InDrive has one single app for all the ride-sharing procedures. You can use it as a passenger as well as a driver. The toggle button is easily visible on the side menu, so that is where you switch into “Driver Mode”. After that, you just fill in all the details they ask for and wait for the verification. You’ll be notified through WhatsApp once they have greenlit you.

Here’s a personal piece of advice: If you have the sorry “payment slip” as proof of your driving eligibility, just upload the front of the paper for both the front and back images of the licence.

• Download InDrive:Android | iOS

The Icebreaker

Well, here’s a scoop of information, I enrolled on InDrive wayyyyyy before Dashain was on the radar. I believe I am not the only one who did this, i.e. registered themselves into the platform and never took a ride. I had InDrive pinging me every now and then on WhatsApp — reminding me I was eligible InDrive rider, and how I could take rides and make money.

But, I just ignored those messages, went about my daily life, and didn’t think about it whatsoever. Until Dashain came around and I had nothing to do. In my brain, I was thinking, “Well, people surely need to move around for the festivals. The number of riders will probably be thin. I could easily make some extra income with InDrive right now.”

I was still hesitant about this whole InDrive-ing, but I tossed my uncertainty aside and took my first ride.

The income with InDrive: Cha-Ching

Now let’s talk money!

For the first day i.e. on Nawami, I started at 2 PM and ended the haul at 6 PM. In the four-hour timeframe, I completed eight rides and amassed over 800 rupees, excluding the commissions. I also burned about half a tank of petrol on this day.

The following day I started earlier, went further and pulled off 13 rides and over two grands in income. On this day, I took a break in the middle, also visited a relative, and burned even more fuel which I waited over an hour in line to get.

1 of 2

Combined, my income was NPR 3,300 and a little extra in total and I paid InDrive a little over 300 in service payments. In the meantime, I had two rides off the book as well — not by choice.

I likely finished a full petrol tank in two days which is about 5 litres on my scooter. I ride the Yamaha RayZR, arguably the best mileage-giving two-wheeler out there — so that helped. On average, my scooter returns me about 45 kilometres on a litre of petrol. I refuel when the scooter says it’s on the last bar, which rarely converts to over NPR 700 even when filling to the brim.

So, in total, I saved myself about 2,500 with maybe around 12 hours of work. I found it quite lucrative, to be honest.

Findings

InDrive is pretty good for extra income and it becomes second nature pretty fast once you take the first ride. Now I don’t see a reason anymore why I wouldn’t pick a ride request on my way to wherever I am heading. I will absolutely pick a passenger up whenever I can and make some extra money. Who cares if I have to take a bit of a detour?

Also, more often than not, people pay exactly the amount they’ve bid — that too in cash. It sounds quite obvious, but I found it quite surprising because usually tip the rider when I am the passenger. And I pay online. A bit of a reality check for me, I guess. It’s not that you don’t get tipped at all, but it’s definitely not as much as you’d expect.

I did all the rides without a mobile holder mounted onto my scooter. It’s surely a hassle, but completely do-able. I tried taping my phone onto the dashboard with double-sided tape, but that thing came off after, like the third ride. I had to peel it off for the safety of my phone. 10 outta 10, would NOT recommend! 😮‍💨

It’s not all rainbows

The labour

You save good money from InDrive alright, but there are some catches — of course! The one you can easily figure out is, it’s really physically taxing. By the end of the two-day haul, my tailbone was hurting, and I felt a sharp pain in my left wrist.

The smoke and dust of Kathmandu is equally bad. It got me popping Strepsils because my throat felt a bit rusty. Now that winter is here, I can only imagine how much tougher it will get.

Insurance is a fugazi

The other major thing that did not sit right with me was the lack of insurance. Previously, InDrive was absolutely free and a heaven for riders. However, after officially launching they started charging a total of 10% (8.84% service charge + 13% VAT on the service charge) on every ride.

During the launch, they claimed insurance was on the way, but it’s been this many months and it’s nowhere to be seen. On top of that, the law mandates insurance to be compulsory for a ride-sharing platform. Yet, here we are — a key player in the industry running freely without one.

Triple-loading

In the 21 rides I did in Dashain, I had to triple-load — thrice! It was a mum and her child duo, which is cute… but not when you have been hailed for a ride. There was no extra income for me or anything on that InDrive request with an extra little person. I have already accepted the request and reached the pickup location. Then a mum arrives with her kid. Urm… what?

This might have been an effect of Dashain though. I haven’t had to do anything like that on later rides. *touch wood*

Let’s go offline!

I mentioned taking two rides off the books earlier, remember? That was not by choice. I do not endorse or support offline rides. But I do not have much of a choice when the passenger cancels or requests to be dropped off at a different location after they have already hopped onto my scooter, can I?

In the first instance, the customer cancelled the request because their friend needed to book another ride. It seems to be a common occurrence in InDrive because I had a similar request earlier as well.

The other time, the customer actually wanted to go to Bhaktapur but couldn’t find a ride because it was too far away. So, they resorted to setting the destination somewhere in the middle and requested to drop them off at Bhaktapur instead.

Other issues too

So far I have mentioned some major issues, but there are other minor issues too. Like, customers place the locations wrong. I have had to circle around a bit too much to find my passenger. They did tip me because of their goodwill, but InDrive does not care what issues I face. Then there are instances where people ask to be dropped off a bit too far from where they have pinned. No compensation whatsoever. Pathao on the other hand has a dynamic fare system, so it makes sure I get paid in full.

I have had customer blame me for their poor time management even though I arrived at the pickup before the estimated time. Then there is InDrive pretending to have a lot of requests, even though that’s not the case. I can’t tell you how many times I have offered for pickup and the order is suddenly “not active” or “expired”. And on normal days, the competition with other fellow InDrive Motorbike Heroes are bit too intense.

And, and, and, those InDrive couriers are a blatant robbery! Those requests are so dirt-cheap that they don’t make sense to accept unless you already have a passenger to drop somewhere en route. One time I travelled over 7 kilometres to drop a package for NPR 120. Later that day, I made 30% extra income from the two InDrive rides I did, totalling about 5 kilometres.

• I covered a similar issue with InDrive previously as well. Do check it out.

InDrive For Extra Income: Conclusion

All in all, going blue-collar and becoming an InDrive rider was an experience, to say the least. There are pros, which are mostly money, and there are cons. I can confidently say that InDrive is a good source of extra income — however, you need to be able to put up with the challenges it presents. Even if you go easy with it, it’ll still provide you with enough amount, such that your vehicle pays for itself. You can make extra income of Rs. 2,000 with InDrive in ONE DAY!

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