Mumbai taxis in rush to fit CNG kits

All attempts to clean the city's polluted air continues, though slowly, as taxis and autorickshaws frantically tried to convert their vehicles to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) to meet the deadline.

Registration of vehicles that have not converted to CNG will be cancelled from September 1 though a large number have yet to change the engines and get the CNG kits fitted.

With the Supreme Court having refused an appeal by the unions for an extension, "we plan to move the High Court on Monday asking for suspension of registration and not cancellation," said D.A. Salian, secretary, Bombay Taximen's Association.

"Regarding vehicles with diesel engines, we think the registration should stand cancelled."

Asked if the taxis and autos were lax about getting the vehicles converted to CNG, he said, "Our main problem has been the availability of engines and CNG kits." Almost all taxis are manufactured by Premier Padmini which has stopped production of this engine.

"Therefore, most of the time we have to get the engines from Chor Bazaar (market of stolen goods) where second-hand ones come from Delhi and Gujarat which means we have to wait a lot.

"Another problem is the availability of CNG kits which are imported, and lastly, the issue of raising finances to get the vehicle converted. All this takes time," he said.

Once the vehicles are fitted with the CNG kits, an approval from the Regional Transport Office (RTO) is required. Already, several agents are making a fast buck by getting quick approvals from the RTO for a price.

At the moment, there are around 11,000 diesel-run taxis that are yet to be converted and these could be facing trouble from tomorrow.

The entire issue of spacing out aged vehicles and introducing cleaner fuel like CNG and Liquefied Natural Gas for public transport took off after the Smoke Affected Residents' Forum filed a petition versus the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai and others in the Mumbai High Court in 1999.

The petition was to seek the court's directions in improving the quality of ambient air in Mumbai. Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Justice Ranjana Desai of the Mumbai High Court ordered the constitution of a committee headed by former transport commissioner V.M. Lal to examine and recommend measures to reduce vehicular pollution.

The committee submitted its report to the High Court on April 20, 2000 with 101 recommendations covering all aspects of vehicular pollution.

The initial deadline for conversion was January 2002 but taxi unions managed to get extensions from the high court four times, and an appeal thereafter was rejected by the apex court.

The idea was to have environment friendly vehicles/engines and fuel with an environment friendly approach. Based on the recommendations, the court directed the conversion to CNG of taxis more than 15 years old and autos more than 10 years old, since this mode of public transport was considered to contribute extensively to pollution on the roads.

However, Salian says: "There are 1.5 million vehicles in Mumbai of which there are 50,000 taxis. The change to CNG by taxis would make little difference."

But Debi Goenka of the Bombay Environmental Action Group thinks that it would certainly help, though he is not presently clear whether it has made a change.

According to him, "The exhaust fumes get washed out during monsoon so it is difficult to say. But what is important is that flying squads will be deployed for the enforcement of pollution control rules. That would certainly help."