Ola joins government-backed ONDC for food delivery services: Report

Ola has joined government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to provide food delivery services and is currently visible to small number of users, Moneycontrol has reported.

Sources told Moneycontrol that the company has been testing the feature since more than a month within its app for employees and the small number of consumers for whom it is available.

It further added that the feature is on the app under the name ‘OLA ONDC food’ as sources also told the daily that Ola will not launch a separate delivery app.

“This is big for Ola, this is likely to compete with Swiggy and others… This feature is not available for everyone, only a handful of users for now and is likely to be open for all, ” industry source aware of the development told Moneycontrol.

Mint could not independently verify the news.

ONDC is a non-profit company whose network will enable the display of products and services from all participating e-commerce platforms in search results across all apps on the network. Earlier in May, Commerce and Industry minister Piyush Goyal had highlighted the transformative role of the ONDC in democratizing the country’s existing e-commerce ecosystem. He had emphasised that ONDC is an engine of growth with the potential to redefine the entire industry.

Coming back to Ola, the founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal is mulling over to appoint a CEO for its cab business reported Economic Times. The new CEO, possibly an ex-Unilever executive, is likely to join the company early next week, reported Economic Times citing sources. Till now, CEO Bhavish Aggarwal has remained the CEO of the company and managed its cab business along with e-scooters verticals.

According to the ET report, the new CEO for Ola Cabs is expected to be a former executive of FMCG major Unilever. The incoming CEO was earlier based in Southeast Asia and had held the role of the country head of Unilever Indonesia. One of the possible names for the post of CEO would be Hemant Bakshi, reported ET citing sources. Hemant is currently posted as the global head and executive vice president of Unilever Marketplace in Singapore.

Meanwhile, in August, Ola Cabs saw its loss widening to ₹3,082 crore in 2021-22, according to financial data accessed by business intelligence platform Tofler as reported by PTI. As per the data, the company’s losses more than doubled on a year-over-year basis. The company’s total expenses for the fiscal were reported as ₹1,539 crore, the statement said.