Time’s up: Crackdown on unregistered e-rickshaws to begin on Feb 8

The Lucknow police’s efforts to regulate the mushrooming e-rickshaws on city roads through colour coding scheme has failed to gain the desired momentum.

Launched on January 1 this year, out of 39,400 forms distributed among the applicants concerned, only 12,500 forms have been filled and submitted for registration till February 7, as per the police record.

The move was initiated by joint commissioner of police (law & order) Upendra Kumar Agarwal to streamline traffic.

With February 7 as the deadline to register already over, the city police are all geared up to penalise those found without any registration from Thursday onwards.

Police officials said FIRs would be registered against those who failed to register by February 7. Penalties are to be levied as well.

“Under the special checking campaign, all police station in-charges, outpost in-charges, traffic sub-inspectors and inspectors will examine the status of e-rickshaws. If any violations are found, the drivers may be fined upto ₹2000 daily. This penalty would be under Section 179 of the Motor Vehicles Act for violating the orders issued by the traffic police,” stated the press statement released by the office of joint commissioner of police (L&O).

“As per the plans made by the city police, a total of 60,000 forms were to be distributed. However, only 39,400 were distributed,” stated the press communique.

The number says approximately 20, 600 forms are yet to be distributed.

“The registration is indeed slow. However, each police station has been asked to step up the campaign,” Agarwal said.

The colour coding scheme for better management has received low response due to multiple factors, but experts say that it is only due to lack of documentation and registration papers with e-rickshaw drivers.

Some feel that slow registration is due to the fact that the majority of e-rickshaw drivers don’t have a driving license which is mandatory for the registration process. “Majority of e-rickshaw drivers have no DL,” said Pankaj Dixit, chairman of Lucknow Auto Rickshaw Three-Wheeler Association (LARTS).

“Most of the drivers are either busy preparing or documenting their DL or other necessary papers which is not right,” police said in a press statement.

Meanwhile, among the applications submitted, most e-rickshaw operators have applied for the old city area while least applications have been received for the Hussainganj, and Gautam Palli route.

Police officials said that the zones will be decided as soon as 25,000 forms are submitted.

After reviewing the forms received so far, maximum applications are for Chowk, Thakurganj and Wazirganj areas followed by zone eight which includes areas such as Aliganj, Madiyaon, Jankipuram areas. Areas such as Kaiserbagh, Aminabad and Naka which come under zone 16 are in third place. Interestingly, Hazratganj route remained the lowest among choices.