In an initiative to promote environment friendly vehicles, the UT Administration will ply battery operated vehicles at city’s prominent tourist spots — Sukhna lake and Rock Garden.
The move is also aimed at ensuring pollution free and noise-free environment around these two famed tourist spots of the City Beautiful The UT Science and Technology Department has mooted a proposal to buy two battery operated vehicles for Chandigarh. The 11-seater battery operated vehicle will be used to ferry tourists from Sculpture Kingdom — Rock Garden to Sukhna lake. The 11-seater environment friendly car can cover 40 km after charging from an electric outlet.
Each vehicle would cost Rs 5.5 lakh (approx) to the UT Science and Technology Department. While talking to The Pioneer, Santosh Kumar, Director, UT Science and Technology Department said, “Two battery operated vehicles would be bought by the Department. The Science and Technology Department would hand over these vehicles to the UT Tourism Department, which would ply these 11-seater cars between Rock Garden and Sukhna lake.
He said, “The objective to ply battery operated vehicles between two prime tourist spots of Chandigarh is to promote these environment friendly vehicles besides to maintain safe and clean environment in the area.” “The Department is also exploring the possibilities to run these vehicles with solar power. Solar panels would also be provided to charge the battery of these cars,” he added.
Amid concerns of escalating vehicular number and pollution levels in Chandigarh, the Science and Technology Department is now eyeing to actively promote the concept of emission free vehicles here. The Department would set up charging stations in Chandigarh to promote the usage of battery operated vehicles. Santosh Kumar said, “To encourage the city residents to buy environment friendly vehicles, two charging stations would be set up in Chandigarh. We are identifying the locations where the charging stations can be set up and things are likely to be finalised soon.”
At present, the UT Forest and Wildlife Department and UT Police Department have electric cars. While the electric cars with the UT Police is gathering dust now, the UT Forest and Wildlife Department ply the electric cars in Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary and during various annual events in the city. Santosh said, “With the implementation of green initiatives, the Department plans to reduce the city’s energy consumption by nearly 20 per cent by 2018.”
“The Department has also planned to use the battery operated vehicles for intra-complex transportation for prominent office complexes like Deluxe Building, Additional Building, UT Secretariat, Police Headquarters in the city,” he added. Notably, the UT Administration’s campaign to promote eco-friendly vehicles had earlier failed to achieve its intended objective. The UT Administration, which was offering 15 per cent subsidy on battery operated vehicles, had stopped providing the subsidy now. At present, Chandigarh faces a major challenge due to continuous growth of urban population, private vehicle ownership, congestion and also due to the fragility of public transport here. After one year of its establishment, Chandigarh had around 940 vehicles and the number of vehicles has escalated to over 9.5 lakh in 2013.