Amid drastic fall in fleet of yellow taxis, BTA pushes for quadricycle cars
Kolkata: The Bengal Taxi Association (BTA) is pushing the state Transport department for registration of quadricycle cars popularly known as ‘Qute’ in the state amid the drastic fall in the fleet of yellow taxis, thanks to the National Green Tribunal’s order of phasing out of vehicles that are over 15 years old.
“Vehicles that are over 15 years old are being phased out and the production of ambassadors has stopped so we have to come up with some alternatives considering that taxis are the heritage of Calcutta and Bengal. In places like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, UP, Chennai, Qute is being used on a large scale as app cabs.
“The state government has already developed its own app ‘Yatri Sathi’ app whose piloting is on so we feel that Qute can be a good option,” Ashim Basu, general secretary of BTA said at an awareness programme related with promotion of the ‘Yatri Sathi’ app.
The Qute has seating arrangements for three persons other than the driver and comes at a much cheaper price than e-vehicles that are priced in the range of Rs 8-9 lakh.
Qute is of two types — CNG driven as well as LPG driven with mileage of 22-24 km per litre of petrol, thereby
limiting pollution.
According to taxi association members, some years back, there were around 8000 odd taxis plying on the roads but now this number is gradually dipping and presently it will not be more than 4000.
Meanwhile, the state is receiving a good response among the passengers and the drivers in connection with the ‘Yatri Sathi’ app whose trial run has almost completed two months.
“The ‘Yatri Sathi’ app was launched as a pilot project in August involving the yellow taxis and there have been over Rs 9 crore transactions through the app,” Basu said.
The state Information Technology and Electronics (IT&E) department has developed the app and after three months of trial run, if it is found that the app is auguring well among the drivers and the passengers, it will be rolled out to the entire city.
