The Vikram Jankalyan Sewa Samiti has agreed to the administration’s decision of replacing diesel engine Vikrams with Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicles. However, they have put few of their demands forward including the demand for providing stage carriages permit to Vikrams in the city. The committee further said that it will only be replacing those vehicles that are in non-functional state. The kit and the engine of rest of the vehicles will be changed accordingly.   

The committee general secretary Rajendra Kumar said, “We have no problem with replacing our vehicles with CNG vehicles, but we will only replace those Vikrams which are in condemned state. For those Vikrams which are just two to five years old, we have spoken with Scooter India; they will be changing the engine or the kit of the vehicles accordingly.”

He said, “We have been given assurance by the government that they will be working on the amendments of the 2011 regulations so that stage carriage permit can be issued to us. For that we will have to follow certain rules, to which we agree. In fact, 324 of our members have also applied for the permit.”

He further added, “In 1979 about 800 Vikrams were in Dehradun, even today our number is 794. It is not because of us that the pollution is increasing, but because of the increasing number of private vehicles in the city. No one takes their number into account; it is just the operation of Vikrams that gets all the blame.”

Another member of the committee said, “It is the e-rickshaws that are violating the rules. They were supposed to be driven by the owner, but now one owner has two-three e-rickshaws. Also, they were to operate on the link routes, but now are operating even on National Highways.”