Diesel-run autos to be a thing of past in city soon

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 8

Chandigarh is all set to become diesel auto-free city soon as the number of diesel-run autos has reduced from 300 to 100 in four months ever since the State Transport Authority (STA) has launched the scheme for giving financial assistance to the owners for replacing their diesel autos with LPG or CNG-run autos.

The STA has announced the financial assistance scheme in August 2017. Under the scheme, owners of diesel-run autos are being given subsidy of Rs 30,000 for replacing their autos with LPG or CNG-run autos.

Rajiv Tiwari, Additional Secretary, Transport Department, said the policy, which ended in December 2017, got good response as the number of autos running on the diesel had reduced from 300 to 100 in the past four months. In order to convert the remaining diesel-run autos to CNG or LPG, time limit for the financial assistance scheme has been extended for one more month.

Now the scheme has been further extended up to January 31. To avail the benefits under the scheme, owners will have to submit a certificate that the existing auto has been sold as scrap before applying for the subsidy.

Sources said there were around 6,000 auto-rickshaws registered with the STA, which include those running on diesel also. With the consistent efforts of the STA, the number of diesel-run autos had reduced in the past few years. Around 100 autos were still running on diesel.

While the STA has already banned the registration of new diesel-run autos, the problem of autos coming from the neighbouring states still continues. The Administration had banned the entry of diesel-run auto-rickshaws in Chandigarh two years ago in view of the pollution caused by them. But despite that, they continue to run on roads.