HC summons transport secy over inaction on e-rickshaw rules

NAGPUR: Peeved by the Maharashtra government’s inaction in creating awareness about e-rickshaws, the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court on Thursday summoned principal secretary of state transport department on August 10, asking him to come up with an explanation.
The stringent directives came while hearing a PIL by rickshaw puller Anil Tembekar, a resident of Lashkaribaug, praying for implementation of the amendments in Central Motor Vehicles Act and Motor Vehicle Rules, for regulating E-rickshaw movement in city.
Petitioner’s counsel Firdos Mirza pointed out that after the centre amended the Central Motor Vehicles Act, 2015, and Central Motor Vehicles rules, 2015, it issued an advisory to all states regarding e-rickshaws, which included licensing, training and fixing of routes.
E-rickshaw and E-cart have now been created as separate categories, and are being promoted to replace manual laboured rickshaws. The centre also issued an advisory for speedy process of licensing and registration, which would result in creating respectful livelihood opportunities for poor rickshaw pullers. It will help women and differently abled persons in gaining meaningful employment, apart from reducing pollution levels.
Last year, the centre informed the states that they need to educate e-rickshaw drivers and mark routes for them in cities, so that they wouldn’t cause traffic congestion. The states were told to pay more attention to women drivers. Mirza contended that other states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and New Delhi had already implemented the amended act and rules.
While replying to the court notice, Nagpur RTO informed that proposal for implementation of new rules for e-rickshaw was forwarded to the transport department, where it was pending. A division bench comprising justice Bhushan Gavai and justice Vinay Deshpande then censured the government for not acting on directives from the centre.
During the last hearing, the court had restrained the government and city police from taking any coercive action against e-rickshaws until further orders, after Mirza brought to its notice that police were unnecessarily harassing owners in the absence of proper guidelines.
The petitioner prayed for implementation of scheme for E-rickshaw and E-cart category of vehicles in Maharashtra as per amended rules. He also demanded allowing citizens using the ‘inhuman’ manual cycle rickshaws to switch over to e-rickshaws.