Click to play videoKolkata: After the Singur land row, the West Bengal government is facing yet another battle. This time two-lakh auto rickshaw drivers and owners are up with arms against the government's order to convert all petrol and diesel run autos into LPG by December 31.
Sixty-six year old Anadi Bramho earns his daily bread from his 20-year old auto rickshaw in which he carries passengers from Rashbehari to Ballugunj.
But these days Anadi is in a deep soup as the State Transport Ministry has banned all autos for 15 years. The ban was imposed after the Kolkata High Court ordered that all autos should be converted into LPG format from January 1 next year.
The state government has offered compensation package in the form of Bank loan but Anadi cannot avail that as he doesn't have a permit to ply but pays road tax in regular basis.
“I have no other option left but to suicide. I have grown old and I can’t afford to buy a new auto rickshaw,” says Anadi.
The Transport Minister has threatened to take stern action if not obeyed.
“We will break all autos as they can’t ply from Januart 1. It is court’s order,” says Transport Minister Shubhas Chakrabarti.
In Kolkata’s metropolitan area, 92,000 autos work in which while 42,000 are registered and 50,000 are unregistered. But the Government accepts road tax from these unregistered autos too.
Autos carry more than a crore passengers daily. Although the State Government is boasting of implementing the court order, Kolkata Metropolitan area has only 12 LPG pumps and already before conversion of the whole lot of autos three pumps are running dry in the city.
“According to the court the government and the oil companies have to assure un-interrupted supply of fuel to the auto rickshaw's other wise they will be in problem,” says transport expert SM Ghosh.
The government is trying to implement the court order to convert all auto's to LPG version by December 31, but in seems impossible right now as the auto rickshaw union has already constituted an auto bachao committee (committee to save autos) to fight a greater political battle in future.
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