Despite knowing the fact that presence of battery operated rickshaws has emerged as the pivotal cause for traffic snarl along the busiest routes, Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) has planned to expand the routes for the public carriers. According to RMC officials, e-rickshaws which were earlier restricted to only six routes, the vehicles will now ferry passengers in 29 additional routes covering some VIP and busy roads as well.
According to the zone wise division plan, in zone one (Booty More side) four routes have been selected while in zone two and zone three which includes the busiest MG Road and Harmu as many as eight routes have been fixed. Similarly, zone four which includes Namkum area and zone five which covers Dhurwa around five and four routes respectively have been figured out there.
Taking into account two prominent routes MG Road and Harmu, as per the route chart plan at Main Road, from Firayalal Chowk to Rajendra Chowk via Sujata Chowk, Firayalal Chowk to Ranchi University via Kutchery Chowk, Firayalal Chowk to Kantatoli Chowk and a few more busy routes have been included in the route plan chart.
Similarly, at Harmu that have ample number of diesel auto-rickshaws operating on all its adjoining routes, now e-rickshaws have been given permission to cover one of the congested route--Kishori Yadav Chowk to Argora Chowk and Argora Chowk to HEC gate. RMC Officer (PR) Naresh Kumar Sinha said, “This year, zone wise categorization has been done for keeping a tab on the violators. On December 4 in the presence of RMC officers, lottery will be conducted. There are chances that number of e-rickshaws at present operating in Capital City’s MG Road to Kutchery road will be curtailed. The decision to increase the routes has been considered to reduce the burden at one particular route besides promoting the green autos.”
However, the decision has increased the burden of different public transport modes at the major locations, when enquired about the total number of permits to be issued to the drivers this season, Sinha said, “Applications fulfilling all eligibilities is being scrutinized by the RMC transportation cell. Through lottery system yet again, the selection process will be done. Last time around 2500 permits were issued to the e-rickshaw drivers, though this year nothing is clarified. Only after the lottery, things will be clear.”
Meanwhile, the decision of RMC to slowly confine the number of diesel auto-rickshaws from 5000 to somewhere around 2000 in State Capital for ensuring smooth vehicular movement is pending since long.
Following the earlier plan only in a prescribed number and considering a few routes that does not witness much traffic jam at a regular interval limited autos including e-rickshaws were expected to ferry passengers here while the remaining auto-rickshaws were supposed to ply in suburbs.
In addition, unavailability of official data about e-rickshaws, auto-rickshaws is yet to be resolved as it is a major snag in clearing the traffic chaos. Several measures in the past had proved futile as even after adopting stringent measures besides conducting regular checking drives, rickshaw drivers valiantly violates rules.
Moreover, including VIP routes that witness ample traffic in peak hours may create trouble in traffic management.