A meeting of city e-rickshaw union people with the Traffic SP and District Traffic Officer (DTO) couldn’t lend them any safe passage with their demands related to seeking route-defined operations.
At the same time, Federation of Jharkhand Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FJCCI) also came down heavily over e-rickshaw operators during its meeting with Transport Secretary KK Khandelwal on Wednesday. The Chamber representatives requested Khandelwal to take strict action against e-rickshaws. They said that e-rickshaws have not only turned traffic on Mahatma Gandhi Road a hell, but have also left the businessmen suffering.
“The e-rickshaws are a reality now. We find fewer options other than to regulate them. But it will have to be done in a way which enhances intra-city commuting. Rickshaw operators need to understand that until and unless any guideline comes out, they will have to remain off the road,” said Traffic SP Sanjay Ranjan Singh on Wednesday.
The FJCCI delegation comprised ex-president Pawan Sharma, Joint Secretary Anand Goyal, Road Transport Sub-Committee Chairman Sanjay Jain and others has also requested Khandelwal asking the Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) and the DTO issuing a guideline for operation of e-rickshaw. The Federation believed that the RMC didn’t have any guideline for e-rickshaw, which created pathetic problems for traffic across the city.
Singh said that the plan so far was to identify 10 routes for e-rickshaws and allow them to operate on those routes in limited numbers. “However, they (the e-rickshaw association) are requesting for more routes and primarily more number of rickshaws on each route. Hence, they have been asked to figure out things in a proper way and to come again in couple of days,” said Singh.