The fortunes of India's BluSmart, a popular electric ride hailing service and once a formidable rival to Uber, have quickly unravelled, with the company halting new cab bookings.

The brand, which still has India's largest all electric ride-hailing fleet of more than 8,000 cars, set high service standards, including well maintained cars and polite drivers.

Quality was BluSmart's biggest selling point as it took on bigger rivals - marred by badly maintained taxis, rude drivers and frequent cancellations – by offering a significantly more premium product that cost only a little more.

The possibility of its closure has led to hundreds taking to social media to express anger and sadness…

So, what went wrong with a start-up that once raised millions of dollars in funding from marquee global investors and found a spot on every major clean-tech awards list since it launched in 2019?...

BluSmart has not responded to the BBC's questions.

The problem appears to be with both gross financial mismanagement…

Unlike traditional cab aggregators who lease their vehicles from individual drivers, BluSmart leased its fleet from companies - in particular from one firm called Gensol Engineering Limited (GEL)…

Last month, credit ratings agencies CARE Ratings and ICRA downgraded the investment rating of GEL after they found that BluSmart had defaulted on its payments to the company…