BENGALURU: While transport vehicles across the world are powered by the less-polluting and efficient four-stroke engines, about 39,000 autorickshaws out of the 1.37 lakh in Bengaluru still run on outdated two-stroke motors. Even a government subsidy to encourage the switch has not helped. About seven years ago, the government came up with a subsidy scheme to encourage autorickshaw owners to switch to four-stroke engine autos.
The scheme was a result of studies that showed two-stroke engines emitted more and caused air pollution as they don't combust fuel efficiently. The world has long-moved over to four-stroke engines and manufacturers have wound-up two-stroke assembly lines. Karnataka's transport department's scheme offered a subsidy of Rs 30,000 to those switching to a new model auto that currently costs about .
Rs 1.45 lakh, exclusive of taxes. Only about 280 people availed the subsidy in the city since the scheme's launch. While the government target for 2014-15 was to get 73 owners to enroll, the transport department has received only 62 applications.
The authorities approved 61 of them and one was rejected for reasons of non-compliance with subsidy conditions.
"Funds are not an issue. If we get more applications, we can always write to the finance department and request for release of more subsidy amount. But as it is, there are few takers even for this small target," transport commissioner Rame Gowda told ET. The government is willing to walk the extra mile to get these autos off the road.
"We will be proposing to the government to increase the subsidy to Rs 50,000, to get more drivers to replace their two-stroke autos with new ones," Maruti Sambrani, joint commissioner (environment & e-governance), transport department, said.
The auto dealers blame poor publicity and lack of enthusiasm at lower levels in the transport department for the scheme's failure.
"I was not aware that such a scheme existed until a dealer told me today," said M Kumar, GM, Chamundi Motors, a Piaggio auto dealer at HBR layout.
AB Gangadhar, owner of MGV Motors in Vijayanagar, said there could be several auto drivers willing to take the subsidy offer if only they were told about the scheme.
"The department must strengthen the scheme's implementation by making the process more transpar scheme existed until a dealer told me today ," said M Kumar, GM, Chamundi Motors, a Piaggio auto dealer at HBR layout.
AB Gangadhar, owner of MGV Motors in Vijayanagar, said there could be several auto drivers will ing to take the subsidy offer if only they were told about the scheme."The department must strengthen the scheme's implementation by making the process more transparent and release the subsidy directly to dealers," he said. Most of the people owning two-stroke autos, he added, were people well above the age of 55 and it was likely they will be finding it difficult to get auto loans due to this reason.
The auto drivers blame RTO offices for the mess, though. "The RTO officials don't take applications as they are not interested in the scheme. Let the transport department designate a single RTO to accept and process applications and then see the response," said M Manjunath, president of Adarsha Auto & Taxi Drivers' Union.
The transport department has adopted another method to deal with the pollution problem. "We have made dual fuel mode compulsory for all autos to be eligible for permit renewal. So even two stroke engine autos now have an LPG option and hence they will be less creating less pollution," the joint commissioner said.
