Green feeder service soon for city metro commuters

Having got the nod from the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon, a social organisation working in the field of environment conservation is all set to launch a green feeder service in the form of battery-operated rickshaws for commuters to travel to Metro stations in Gurgaon. Sanjeev K. Ahuja reports.

Having got the nod from the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MSG), a social organisation working in the field of environment conservation is all set to launch a green feeder service in the form of battery-operated rickshaws for commuters to travel to Metro stations in Gurgaon.

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Experimenting on a number of variants, this organisation is finally looking for the ‘volunteer’ rickshaw-pullers who would be interested in upgrading themselves from the conventional manually pulled rickshaws to newer version of battery operated green rickshaws.

“We have three models of battery-operated rickshaws that we have sourced from different places. We also have made an alteration from three-wheel rickshaws to four-wheel ones but are reluctant to launch this variant as it would fall under the purview of road tax. Three-wheeled rickshaws do not come under tax net,” said Sanjay Kaushik, president of a social organisation called Uthaan.

He said that his organsiation had already achieved in-principle approval from the MCG for launching green feeder service battery-operated rickshaws as well as green cycles.

He said the limited parking space and absence of the feeder service such as local buses and auto-rickshaws had become a cause of concern for the people in general in Gurgaon.

“We have finally zeroed in on one of the two three-wheeled rickshaws which is a cheaper version with a cost of Rs 30,000 only. The other one costs around Rs 55,000. The four-wheeled costs about Rs. 65,000. The first version comes from a Manesar- based company and can be afforded by the poor rickshaw- pullers also,” Kaushik added.

The battery operated rickshaws can ferry 2-3 passengers at a time.

However, Uthaan is finding it tough to get rickshaw- pullers who can afford even the margin money of Rs 7500 they have to pay initially in addition to Rs 625 installments per week.