Ghaziabad area autos to be colour coded, will use CNG fuel

The decision was taken in an RTA meeting held in Ghaziabad on Tuesday chaired by divisional commissioner Anita C Meshram.

To restrict the movement of autos within their respective operating centres, officials of the regional transport authority (RTA) have decided that auto-rickshaws will be colour coded in Ghaziabad. It has also been decided that the auto-rickshaws will have to convert to CNG fuel within four months.

The RTA has decided that autos operating in Modi Nagar will be painted black, those in Loni will be red, and the ones in Ghaziabad city will be regular green. (Sakib Ali/ht photo)

According to officials, the district has three centres from where about 14,000 autos operate on a daily basis.

The decision was taken in an RTA meeting held in Ghaziabad on Tuesday chaired by divisional commissioner Anita C Meshram. The officials of the regional transport office, Ghaziabad, came up with the proposal of colour coding autos.

“It was decided that autos operating from the Modinagar centre will be black in colour, while those operating from Loni will be painted red. Autos in Ghaziabad city will be painted in the regular green colour. The colour coding scheme has been decided upon to restrict the movement of autos to other centres,” said AK Tripathi, regional transport officer, Ghaziabad.

According to officials, the district has about 5,800 autos operating from the Loni centre, while 8,000 autos operate from Ghaziabad city. The rest operate from the Modinagar centre. They added that the colour coding scheme is likely to be ready in one month.

“There are autos that operate outside their centre’s limit and their drivers are often found to be involved in crime. If anyone is found violating the scheme, they will be penalised,” said Upendra Kumar Agrawal, deputy inspector general (Ghaziabad).

Further, transport department officials said that autos will also have to convert to CNG fuel within four months.

“Autos in Ghaziabad and Loni already use CNG fuel, for which we started giving permits in 2006. There are only about 230 autos in Modinagar that still run on diesel, because the town has no CNG station. Now, a CNG pump has opened in Muradnagar. So these autos will need to convert to CNG. We have already stopped issuing permits for diesel fuel-based autos,” said an officer from the transport department.