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State To Seek Relaxation For Amby Taxis

By ugesh sarkar, Section Transportation
Posted on Sat Jan 30, 2010 at 10:56:36 PM EST

In yet another attempt to defer compliance with the emission roadmap charted out by the Centre, the state government is set to seek a relaxation for registration of taxis with older emission standards.

While all new vehicles that are registered in metros are required to be BS IV-compliant from April 1, the state transport department plans to write to the Centre, seeking exemption for the Ambassador. Ambys are still used as metered taxis in Kolkata even as transporters shun them in other parts of the country.

"The Centre has asked all state governments with metro cities to gear up for registering only BS IV-compliant vehicles from April 2010. While there is no problem with most vehicles, there is an issue with Ambassador taxis as 15-year-old cabs are currently being replaced. Of the 6,000-odd cabs that were scrapped, around 3,500 have been replaced with BS III ones. Till the rest are replaced, we want the segment to be exempted because cab owners are unwilling to shell out more for BS IV vehicles," said transport minister Ranjit Kundu.

Though the minister cites price differential between BS III and BS IV Ambys as the primary reason for seeking a relaxation, sources in the industry said Hindustan Motors was not even ready with a BS IV model, leave alone fix its pricing.

Source: Times of India State to seek relaxation for Amby taxis

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"Engineers at HM are trying to come out with a BS IV Amby based on the 1.8-litre Isuzu fuel-injection petrol engine by replacing the fuel with LPG. However, given the bitter experience cab owners and drivers have had with an LPG variant HM introduced and subsequently withdrew, neither the automaker nor customers are gung-ho about it," said a source, ruling out a BS IV diesel Amby by April.

Taxi owners, meanwhile, continue to demand two vehicles from the Maruti Suzuki stable as taxis. The Omni and Eeco are both BS IV-compliant but the government has steadfastly refused the former's entry into the taxi segment and is yet to take a call on the latter.

"There is a demand for introduction of the Eeco from different taxi associations. We will evaluate the possibility," the minister said.

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