COIMBATORE: The Coimbatore city police have finally decided to put to use the two battery-operated auto-rickshaws that were donated by a private company for patrolling. On Friday, city police commissioner inspected the autorickshaw. Four police personnel including the driver can travel at a time in each vehicle.
The vehicles were not deployed and were parked at the Police Recruit School (PRS) campus for the last seven months, due to some hassles in obtaining registration from the transport department.
Sources said licences were not provided to battery-operated passenger vehicles or vehicles that ran on methanol or ethanol fuel. Though there was a notification exempting these vehicles from getting a licence, which was issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, it was not allowed in Tamil Nadu as there would be regulatory concerns and on-road issues. The state government recently issued an order allowing registration of battery-operated passenger vehicles including auto-rickshaws.
Deputy Commissioner V Balakrishnan told TNIE “All issues regarding registration were cleared and some design flaws in the vehicles were also fixed. Also, we purchased two more vehicles with additional features of handcuffs for the mobility of the accused and the public address system. The vehicles will be launched in a week.”