After, radio taxi and tuktuk, now rickshaws will be available at your door step in city. The authorities from UT Administration and Chandigarh Municipal Corporation on Tuesday launched these eco cabs, popularly known as rickshaws, at Chandigarh Lake Club.
City residents can hire rickshaws at www.chandigarh.ecocabs.org with Google maps pin pointing the location of rickshaw stands in each Sector and cell phone numbers of rickshaw pullers. It is a community-run portal where any user can refer a rickshaw puller by uploading his picture, contact details and location. The eco cabs were launched by UT advisor KK Sharma. He was accompanied by VK Singh, UT Finance secretary and VP Singh, MC Commissioner. During the launching, the adviser 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. Similarly, 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 rickshaw pullers towards traffic norms under SJSRY scheme of MC.
While giving presentation about the eco cabs, Navdeep Asija, founder of ecocabs, 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,” he said.
There are around 25,000 rickshaws running on city roads transporting 20 passengers each and hence saving 75,000 litres of fuel daily. It has been estimated that the proposed Chandigarh metro rail network will cater to 3.18 lakh people 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.
