Soon, the residents of New Town will get Bike Taxis which will be introduced for the first time in the state in March.
There are already Bike Taxis in Gurgaon and Bengaluru.
There were several rounds of talks between the chairman of Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) Debashis Sen and principal secretary, Transport department Alapan Bandyopadhyay were held to discuss the matter and the Transport department gave certain conditions for introducing Bike Taxi.
Two operators approached the Transport department and on Thursday, one such Bike Taxi was demonstrated before the senior officials of HIDCO.
The proposal to introduce Bike Taxis was taken in 2016. It took more than a year for the operators to comply with the conditions given by the Transport department which includes safety of the passengers.
Around 20 Bike Taxis will be introduced as a pilot project. The taxis will be app-based and will collect the passengers from their door steps and will drop them at any point within New Town. As the roads in New Town are well planned and wide, Bike Taxis will be introduced here first. If successful, the model will be replicated in other parts in the state.
The driver of a Bike Taxi must have one year experience in driving a motorcycle. The owner must have a garage where the Bike Taxis will be parked and they will be fitted with speed governors. The maximum speed will be 40 km per hour. The motorcycles will be treated as commercial vehicles and will bear yellow number plates.
Senior state government officials said steps had been taken to avoid accidents and hence, the concept of speed governors had been introduced. As many people who stay in New Town go frequently to Bengaluru and Gurgaon, it was felt that if they are introduced in New Town, they would fetch passengers. If successful, the scheme would engage unemployed youth. Work is on to calculate the fare.