The Uttar Pradesh transport department has proposed a colour code for contract carriage vehicles, including taxis, app-based cabs, e-rickshaws and buses, to bring about uniformity in their look and penalise the flouters.

Transport commissioner P Guruprasad said, “We have planned the introduction of a uniform colour scheme for contract carriage vehicles and have sent a proposal in this regard to the state government to seek the cabinet’s nod.” Contract carriage vehicles are those that carry passengers for hire or reward and are engaged in a contract, whether it is expressed or not.

At present, there were no fixed norms with regard to the uniform colours for such vehicles and this led to confusion among passengers as well as the checking staff.

People dealing with issue said all the contract carriage taxis, including ones operated by the aggregators like Ola and Uber, as well as buses will have to sport a horizontal sky blue strip on the body with ‘Taxi’ or ‘Contract Carriage’ in case of a bus written inside a circle in the middle on both the sides. However,

such vehicles will have the liberty to be painted in any colour they like to.

“City buses and UPSRTC buses will not be covered under this rule as they carry stage carriage permits,” they clarified.

The proposal waiting the Cabinet’s nod seeks to exempt bike taxis from the necessity of following any colour code unlike at present when they are not supposed to display black, maroon and red. “They will be asked to only display ‘B/Taxi’ in a circle on the body,” people familiar with the issue said.

Similarly, all the vehicles driven by women and meant exclusively for women passengers will be pink, giving them a separate look and identity. School buses will continue to be painted yellow.

White has been proposed for electric vehicles, including the e-rickshaws.

“A colour code for electric buses will be fixed later when they actually come on road,” sources said.

Green will continue to be the colour for all CNG vehicles.

“The regional transport authorities have already fixed green colour code for CNG vehicles under their respective regions and we have retained that scheme in the proposal,” they said.

First Published: Oct 29, 2018 14:22 IST