THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : The city corporation’s plan to adopt electric vehicles as part of the Smart City initiative has faced a major setback with the Kerala Automobiles Ltd (KAL) failing to deliver e-autos.
As per the agreement, the public sector company was supposed to deliver 15 e-autos to the Smart City Thiruvananthapuram Ltd (SCTL) by December 2019. The launch of e-autos by KAL was celebrated with much fanfare last year. However, even after several months, KAL has failed to roll out e-autos on a large scale in the market as promised.
The e-auto project is estimated to cost around Rs 1.92 crore. "Our plan was to launch both e-rickshaws and e-autos by the beginning of this year. E-rickshaws were slated to start rolling in the capital by first or second week of February. But KAL is yet to deliver the e-autos to us. We have been trying to contact them but apart from promises, nothing has happened on the ground," said an official associated with the project.
The official said that Smart City Thiruvananthapuram Ltd plans to wait till March.
“If KAL fails to hand over e-autos by then, the deal would be scrapped. We cannot wait any further. The corporation has already submitted the list of beneficiaries for the project. We will be validating it soon. The plan is to give more priority to woman drivers,” the official added. The main difference between an e-auto and e-rickshaw is that the e-rickshaw would be a four seater and would be used for shared rides.
"KAL made some changes to the final design of the e-autos after getting the certification from ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India). Now they have to resubmit application to get the clearance again," said a source. However, chairman of KAL Karamana Hari denied the allegations levelled against the company.
"There is no issue in delivering e-autos as part of the Smart City project. We have already rolled out 20 autos. Smart City authorities were contacted in the first week of January. But they asked us to get back to them after January 15. We are ready to deliver the autos once the payment is made. Some e-autos were deployed at various events held in the city to popularise them among the public," said Hari.