By 1 2 1 News Reporter
Chandigarh 25th June:- Advisor to Administrator,UT Chandigarh K.K. Sharma, today formally launched the eco cabs at lake club. He was accompanied by V.K. Singh, Finance Secretary, UT and V.P. Singh, Commissioner Municipal Corporation Chandigarh.
During the launching the Advisor UT K.K. Sharma said that more research has to be done in the field of eco friendly communication system in the city and aligning cycle rickshaws with advanced communication tools can make them more viable and appealing. He said that people should go for eco friendly alternates for transportation.
MC commissioner said that Municipal Corporation has already helping the needy people through its SJSRY schemes by providing them skill training programmes. He said that the eco friendly cabs will grow gradually in city and suggested to impart training to the rikshaw pullers towards traffic norms under SJSRY scheme of MC.
While giving presentation about the eco cabs, Mr. Navdeep said that urban life seems to be an ode to mobility. Communication facilities ensure we carry our world with us while better transport takes us to places. From budget airlines to express trains, metro rails, low floor buses, on-call taxis and auto rickshaws, we are almost always on the go, counting time as money and spending money on fuel. In this race against time, the humble cycle rickshaws lies ignored as nothing much has been done to streamline this service. But despite this indifference, these low cost vehicles still carry a large share of urban mobility.
In Punjab, there are 2.6 lakh cars and 3 lakh rickshaws. While daily occupancy rate of cars is 1.1, 20 persons travel on each rickshaw every day which means rickshaws ferry 60 lakh people daily as compared to only 3.5-4 lakh by cars. Not only this mode provides node-to-node connectivity, it also takes lesser road space. Despite this, we are paying no attention to improve the viability of this green mode of transport, neither through infrastructural changes to make its plying safer nor by creating more demand.
Find a rickshaw:-As cities are expanding, it's getting difficult to find a rickshaw. Not only the roads are becoming increasingly unfriendly to non-motorised transport, we also seek quick movement. In a city like Chandigarh, 26 per cent families own a car and it has the highest number of vehicles per capita in the country. Even for short distance travel, residents prefer to use private vehicles. This need can be easily met by rickshaws as they are a recommended mode upto 3 km range.
Chandigarh eco cabs:-There are around 25,000 rickshaws running on city roads transporting 20 passengers each and hence saving 75,000 litre of fuel daily. It has been estimated that the proposed Chandigarh metro rail network will cater to 3.18 lakh per day in 2018. Rickshaws are already ferrying 5 lakh passengers daily. The demand can easily be increased by 5-10 per cent through good stands, passenger information etc.
According to recent data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Chandigarh has one of the highest teledensity in the country at 92 per cent. This is our real time infrastructure. If we align it with our public transport infrastructure, good results can be achieved. While taxis and autos are already organised through call centres, nothing has been done to adopt similar concept for the rickshaws. This is what Eco Cabs intend to do by addressing two issues: Make rickshaws accessible and secondly, improve their quality.
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