Asom to 'export' rickshaws to other states

Guwahati, May 3 (UNI) A car-manufacturing unit could still be elusive for Asom, but it is now all set to 'export' rickshaws to the rest of the country in a big way.

The Rickshaw Bank, which has drawn mass adulation for helping the poor rickshaw-pullers in the state to gain a stable financial position, has long-drawn plans to expand its network across the country.

Informing this at a press meet here today, Dr Pradip Kumar Sharma, the man behind the project, said, ''Besides Asom, our specially-designed rickshaws are already plying the roads of Agartala and Chennai. We are planning to enter more states.'' The Rickshaw Bank is a project of the NGO Centre for Rural Development(CRD), which provides specially designed rickshaws to the poor against a system of repayment of the cost for the rickshaw in installments of Rs 25 daily.

When the cost of Rs 10,500 is repaid to the Rickshaw Bank, the puller becomes the owner of the rickshaw he plies. The design of this special rickshaw was developed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, and had been operational on the roads of the state since November, 2004.

Dr Sharma informed that two new cities, Surat and Noida, would be added to the map of the Rickshaw Bank in 2007-08.

''We are designing a special goods-carrying rickshaw, based on the basic design of our special rickshaw, to ferry goods in the textile mills in Surat,'' he added.

''Noida rickshaws would be fitted with FM radio sets,'' Dr Sharma said, adding that the CRD was in touch with the Chinese firm to introduce battery-operated engines in the special rickshaws.

''If these engines were fitted, the rickshaw could run 80 kms, at 15 km/hr, with a three hours electrical charge of the battery. But the idea is at a very new stage and it will take some time for it to be operational,'' he said.

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