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VISUALLY CHALLENGED
HAMID HAS AN EYE FOR
BUSINESS
Murtuza H Hamid may be the transporters to customers. sastabhada offering 30 per cent rebate
visually challenged, but "If a vehicle lies idle for a day it on general insurance and concession of
that did not deter him costs Rs. 2,500 to the owner. My 50 paise per litre of diesel.
from setting his sight on intention is to help small trans-
helping small transporters cut costs. porters to get customers," says Hamid, Before launching the website, Hamid
who is from Kota. surveyed five States - Delhi, Madhya
Having brought up in the family-run Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and
auto lubricant business, he had come Through the portal, registered trans- Gujarat, for three years and collated
to understand the woes of the small porters can show their availability on data of 1.70 lakh transporters. "About
transporters. Their biggest worry, he a particular route. Customers, on the 80 per cent of the fleet owners have
realised, was to find adequate loads on other hand, can look for trucks on spe- less than 10 vehicles. I saw this as an
return journeys. For example, a truck cific routes, get quotes and book a trip. opportunity to offer an organised plat-
booked by a customer in Delhi to move "We do not interfere in the negotia- form for them to compete with bigger
goods to Mumbai would either have to tion of rates between fleet owners and players", says Hamid.
wait for days in Mumbai to get a book- their customers," says Hamid. While
ing for the return journey or had to go the service is being offered for free In 2010, he linked 1,000 transporters in
back empty. To cushion the costs, truck now, Hamid plans to charge a fee from Jaipur through a call centre, but found
owners were often forced to accept transporters once the site becomes that the savings for transporters was lim-
loads from brokers just for the price of popular. ited. That's when he joined with three
diesel. young entrepreneurs - Ajay Kumawat,
Jaipur based Anil Mishra, owner of Hari Manish Ranjan and Krishnapal Singh - to
Last month, Hamid started Om Transport, has managed to bring take the business model online and
sastabhada.com, a portal which tries down costs by 20 per cent after using launch sastabhada.com.
to address this problem by connecting Hamid's site. With a fleet of 10 trucks,
he hopes the savings will increase with
The company has invested Rs 80 lakh
in developing the IT backbone. The
portal now has 4,000 registered trans-
porters with complete details on the
owners, drivers, vehicle insurance.
(Source : BL)
Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, "I'm possible!"
20 PR COMMUNICATION AGE August 2015
