A Delhi BJP delegation, led by its chief Satish Upadhyay, and a Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) team met Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung on Friday and submitted a memorandum in support of a transport system that helps “poor people of the city get employment on a large scale”.
The memorandum states that e-rickshaws are operating world-wide as a feeder to the urban public transport system. “Although the operation of e-rickshaws has not been regulated in Delhi yet they are working as cheap feeder system to the trunk public transport system in the Capital. It has also helped the poor people in the city in getting self employment on a large scale.”
The BJP leaders told Mr. Jung that in the context of the High Court order the Delhi Government should be given three months’ time to put necessary legal framework to regulate e-rickshaws and “e-rickshaw operations in Delhi may be allowed to be regulated as per provision u/s 28 of the Delhi Police Act.”
The DPCC) urged the L-G to pass an ordinance to regularise e-rickshaws. The rickshaws, which have been temporarily banned by the Delhi High Court, are an affordable and clean mode of last-mile transit -- albeit unsafe and free of regulation.
The delegation, led by DPCC president Arvinder Singh, also informed the L-G that while the livelihood of two lakh drivers and eight lakh dependants must be protected, safety should be priority while drafting the ordinance. They claimed that 42,000 e-rickshaws were sold after Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari regularised the vehicles -- a step which allegedly has driven several owners to penury.
The PCC has decided to gherao Mr. Gadkari if relief was not given to the drivers immediately.
