The Taj Mahal, India's most celebrated monument looms on the banks of a stinking river, almost always enveloped in a haze of dust and smog caused by belching smokestacks and the exhaust fumes of cars, trucks and auto-rickshaws. Environmentalists and the government, worried that the soot and fumes will turn the gleaming white Taj Mahal black, have set to work to save the monument. Restrictions have been clamped on industry and traffic in a bid to clean the air around the city of Agra. Among the solutions that transport experts have come up with to quicken the process is pedal power -- a project to promote cycle rickshaws. "The rickshaw is a cheap, non-polluting vehicle and a viable mode of transport for narrow lanes and places around the Taj Mahal where the use of motor vehicles is banned,'' says M.K. Mehta of the Asian Institute of Transport Development (AITD), one of the non-governmental organisations implementing the project: "By making cycle rickshaws more comfortable for the passenger and the rickshaw puller we think that more people will use them to get around,'' added Mehta.
In Agra, close to 30,000 cycle rickshaws jostle for space on the congested roads. They are popular means of transport in the 500-metre radius of the Taj Mahal where only eco-friendly battery-run vehicles and rickshaws are permitted. Industrial designers say that, unlike other modes of transport, cycle rickshaws have seen little change in design over the past 50 years. Most are sturdy, improvised bicycle frames to which heavy and ornate chassis made of wood, steel and aluminium are attached.
AITD, in collaboration with New York-based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, designed a new fleet of rickshaws using a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. "The conventional rickshaw weighs about 80-90 kg but we have used tubings even for the chassis and that has cut the weight to about 58 kg,'' said S. Prabhu, an industrial designer. Sixty of the new vehicles have been taking tourists around the bustling city of over a million people since last October and 300 more rickshaws will be introduced this year. "Customers are willing to pay more for the comfort, which means we earn more,'' said Noor Mohammad, owner of one of the smart orange cycle rickshaws who has hauled tourists around Agra's numerous historical monuments for the past 16 years.
The next phase of the project is to persuade manufacturers to make the cycle rickshaws which have wider seats, and also to organise subsidies so more people can afford them. "Once there are a considerable number on the road, market forces will take over - demand will grow because pullers want to earn more,'' said Mehta. The rickshaw project is just one of the many which are being carried out to help save the Taj Mahal which was built by Emperor Shah Jahan in 1631 for his beloved wife, who died in childbirth. Fruits of the efforts are beginning to appear, but there is still a long way to go. Uttar Pradesh state officials say sulphur-dioxide levels dropped to 10 micrograms per square metre in 1999 from 17 micrograms in 1997 in the area around the mausoleum. Suspended particulate matter fell to 479 micrograms per square metre from 568 micrograms over the same period. With the permissible sulphur-dioxide level being 15 micrograms, it might not be as alarming as the suspended particular matter, which, according to the norms, should not be above 70 micrograms, said C.S. Bhatt, member secretary of the U.P. Pollution Prevention Board. Bhatt said in other parts of Agra and areas surrounding the city, pollution is increasing and the state is hoping a 60-million-rupee environment improvement programme currently being implemented will help. A sewage treatment plant is being installed in the river Yamuna, which receives the entire sewage of Agra, while a couple of fly-overs and a bypass were being made to keep highway traffic outside the city limits. In Agra, homes, businesses and factories are left without electricity for hours every day forcing many to depend on kerosene-operated generator sets which number 40,000 for their power needs.
Uninterrupted power supplies would discourage the use of generators which spew harmful fumes. And glass and other factories in neighbouring cities are being persuaded to use gas instead of coke in their furnaces.
Freitag, 19. Mai 2000