Kolkata: Hand-pulled rickshaws in the city will soon be a thing of the past, with their battery-powered modern equivalents to be seen soon on the streets.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has come up with a plan to rehabilitate around 6,000 rickshaw pullers and an equal number of owners in the city in a bid to upgrade the vehicle to a battery powered variant.
"The decision has been taken responding to the demand of those hand-rickshaw pullers and owners, who turned jobless with the ban of this mode of transport in this city," Banerjee said.
The Left Front government had proposed to do away with the British-era vehicle passing the Calcutta Hackney Carriage (Amendment) Bill in 2006 on grounds of inhumanity towards the rickshaw pullers.
"Once they let us know, we will... buy the green rickshaws for them. Twelve thousand families will benefit directly from this," Banerjee said.
State Transport Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay will be working out the rehabilitation plan as well as the upgrade to battery powered vehicles.
Banerjee said rickshaw pullers' unions had approached her for a solution over the ban and the decision was taken thereafter.
Termed green rickshaws, the battery powered vehicles have recently become a craze in the district of Howrah and its surroundings in West Bengal. In the districts, the vehicle is called "toto" in local dialect.
Parliament Monday cleared an amendment to the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, to include provisions for e-rickshaws paving the way to lift the ongoing ban on e-rickshaws in Delhi NCR as well as other regions.
