Owners of two-stroke autos can take loans from banks to buy four-stroke vehicles after depositing Rs 30,000 as seed money. Out of it, Rs 10,000 will be provided by the government as subsidy and Rs 8,000 will come from selling the old vehicle. A new four-stroke auto costs about Rs 1.3 lakh.

“We have received a proposal from the state government to replace old two-stroke autos with four-stroke ones. The government is even prepared to provide some subsidy. We will consider the proposal once the details are worked out,” said Kishore Ghosh, the secretary of the Citu-controlled autorickshaw union. He made it clear that “there is no question of conversion to LPG now”.

The green lobby smells a rat in the government’s u-turn. “How can auto owners who could not convert to LPG by spending a few thousand rupees buy new vehicles by spending over a lakh?” asked environment activist Subhas Dutta.

“The central surface transport ministry promoted conversion of autos on the basis of clearances by the Automotive Research Association of India and Vehicle Research Development Establishment,” said environment expert S.M. Ghosh.

Autos have been successfully converted to LPG in cities like Bangalore and Chennai, pointed out Anumita Roy Choudhury of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment.