Autos not registered for years, their number in city up

Manmeet Singh Gill

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, November 23

Despite the fact that the local administration had stopped the registration of new auto-rickshaws, following a Punjab and Haryana High Court order in 2009, their number is increasing as the administration has failed to check the use of rickshaws registered outside the MC limits in the holy city.

Most of the auto-rickshaws plying on the city roads have registration plates from towns outside the MC limits or even from other districts. As per norms, an auto-rickshaw can be allowed to operate within the limits of the Municipal Corporation in which it was registered.

It was in July 2009 that the Punjab and Haryana High court while pronouncing its verdict on a Civil Writ Petition had banned the new registration of auto-rickshaws within the limits of the municipal corporations of Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar.

However the increasing number of auto-rickshaws is visible on the city roads, as most of them have registration numbers from outside the city. The growing number of these rickshaws is further noticeable as they ignore safety and road rules to pick up a passenger before another driver does.

As the increasing number of auto-rickshaws has become a cause of concern due to their pollution emission levels and the traffic chaos caused by them, the city residents feel that rules in this regard should be strictly implemented.

A local mechanic revealed, “Most auto drivers mix kerosene and diesel to cut their fuel costs. As kerosene burnt in diesel engines causes more pollution, this needs to be checked.”

Recently, as rising pollution levels in the city had been a widely debated issue, as farmers were burning crop residue in the fields, the farmers stated that the responsibility for pollution should not be fixed on any one particular trade or community.

“A person burning a garbage heap is as much responsible as a farmer burning stubble or an auto-rickshaw driver earning his livelihood illegally. The idea should be to check every pollution-causing agent, instead of focusing on any one trade or community,” said a noted farmer leader, Rattan Singh Randhawa.