Fringe benefits: Totos to be new autos in Kolkata

Kolkata: The transport department is looking to upgrade the existing battery-driven rickshaws to authorized e-rickshaws and rationalize their routes to decongest the city fringes and suburban towns following a Calcutta HC order on May 6.
The transport department will hold a meeting on May 13 to discuss how to regularize the mode of transport in various parts of Bengal.Once the eco-friendly Totos are regularized, they are likely to attain the kind of popularity autos have in Kolkata - making short-distance commute cheap as well as non-polluting. Toto, which acts as a last-mile connect for a huge portion of the populace, is a result of micro-entrepreneurship efforts.
Principal secretary (transport) Alapan Bandyopadhyay had argued in court that Totos and e-rickshaws have effectively bridged the gap between supply and demand that existed in the suburban towns where the public transport system is poor.
The state will also get a study conducted by CIRT, Pune, selected by the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH), to evolve a technical platform where the unauthorized battery-driven as well as fuel-engine rickshaws can be upgraded to standardized e-rickshaws with support from the state.
The transport department has already received a preliminary report on how the exponential growth of e-rickshaws has been choking roads and intersections in suburban towns.
The division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice Arijit Banerjee of Calcutta high court has warned against the legal consequences of travelling in unauthorized vehicles. "If they were to meet with an accident and the vehicle is neither registered nor insured, what happens to the rights of the victims?" the court said.
Before the May 13 meeting, the state has asked all regional transport offices (RTOs) to apprise it of the number of registered and unregistered Totos and applications for new vehicles in relation to the road length, availability of public transport and commuting demand in their zones. The transport department has told the court that if routes are fixed, distribution of e-rickshaws is rationalized and new routes are mapped to cover uncharted territories, the problem can be solved.
The meeting of the HC-appointed panel will follow the meeting of the transport department for necessary modification, ratification and approval of the policies. As Totos are environment friendly, with the least operating cost, petrol and diesel-run Vanos and autos will be replaced by them in the long run.