The Centre on Friday acknowledged that huge proliferation of e-rickshaws has posed serious challenges, particularly congestion around Metro stations in Delhi and its suburbs. Union urban affairs secretary Manoj Joshi said while the shared last mile mobility has served the purpose there is a need to redesign the stations to accommodate them.
Addressing the Urban Mobility India (UMI) conference in the capital, Joshi said Delhi has, in a way, solved the last mile connectivity as people can get e-rickshaws at an affordable fare. However, there is an “associated problem of too many e-rickshaws” getting Metro stations “choked” in Delhi.
As a solution to this issue, Joshi said, perhaps there is a need to redesign and standardise e-rickshaws for safety. He added that Metro stations also need to be designed in a way that accommodate e-rickshaws without choking roads.
Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri said there will be “autonomous solutions” for last-mile connectivity and e-rickshaws are one of them.
On government’s push for electric public transport, Joshi said the first tender for 3,000 electric buses under the recently announced ‘PM-eBus Sewa Scheme‘ will be floated next week.
