MCG to introduce 2,000 e-rickshaws, will hold meeting with owners of diesel autos

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG), in a bid to check pollution levels and phase out diesel vehicles, will introduce 2,000 e-rickshaws in Gurugram, officials familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, even as the road transport authority (RTA) announced an initiative to replace banned diesel auto-rickshaws older than 10 years with e-rickshaws.

The MCG’s executive engineer, Devender Bhadana, said that the civic body will hold a meeting with diesel autorickshaw owners and drivers at the John Hall in Civil Lines on Wednesday. They will be sensitised about the environmental harms caused by operating diesel auto-rickshaws and will be explained the MCG’s policy, including monetary aids, for switching to e-rickshaws.

MCG officials said that traffic police and RTA officials will also attend the meeting. “The main purpose of the meeting is for generating awareness among diesel auto-rickshaw owners and drivers. The MCG will explain to them the environmental damages caused through running auto-rickshaws on diesel and the long-term economic benefits of e-rickshaws due to considerable lower running and maintenance costs,” said Bhadana.

Bhadana said that the MCG will be providing a grant of around ₹50,000 to diesel auto-rickshaw drivers and owners, while around ₹30,000 will be given as scrap costs, provided the diesel auto-rickshaw is scrapped by an agency authorised by the Haryana government.

“The purchaser concerned can procure any e-rickshaw of their choice. We are aiming to launch all 2,000 e-rickshaws within the next three months,” said Bhadana, adding that the RTA will provide e-rickshaw owners registration certificates (RC) within 72 hours of applying.

Bhadana said that the MCG will be the regulatory body for all the 2,000 e-rickshaws and will also determine a fixed fare, based on point-to-point distances.

Bhadana said that the MCG has also finalised a contractor for assisting diesel auto-rickshaw drivers and owners with all the necessary documentation to procure loans for purchasing e-rickshaws.

In September last year, HT had reported that the MCG floated a tender to select a contractor for this task and that the civic body is looking to introduce 2,000 new e-rickshaws in the city. MCG officials said that the 2,000 e-rickshaws are being launched in the first phase of the project and once the conversion figure is attained, they will roll out 5,000 more e-rickshaws.

In September 2016, the then MCG additional commissioner, Amit Khatri, came up with a plan of launching 1,000 app-based e-rickshaws in the city along with an app-based company for last-mile connectivity to residents from areas located near rapid metro stations.This plan, however, never came to fruition, and the same company launched 500 e-rickshaws a year later at stations of the Delhi Metro in the city.

MCG officials privy to the matter said that Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar may also launch a batch of new e-rickshaws in the city on Friday, as the RTA seeks to replace banned autos with e-rickshaws.