Supreme Court on Tuesday assigned federal and provincial environment departments the task of exploring a way out for providing financial assistance to the owners wherever needed for conversion of 'carbon emitting' buses and auto rickshaws into environment friendly vehicles running on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) as fuel.

Asia has the world's highest concentration of two and three wheelers, both in absolute terms and as a fraction of overall road vehicle population. In many Asian cities, these vehicles account for 50 to 90% of the total vehicle fleet of which a large percentage are powered by two stroke engines. The main pollutants of concern from 2-stroke three wheelers are hydrocarbons and particulate matter.

MoU signed by UN agency with Indian partners

Sandeep Joshi

NEW DELHI: United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO)

West Bengal's Left Front government is sitting on a powder keg even as Mamata Banerjee walks around with a lighted match. In a year in which the Lok Sabha elections are due and a hobbling economy has spread widespread anxiety in the cities, the quasi-ban on Kolkata's polluting auto rickshaws is like the last straw for the state government.

The Calcutta High Court will now monitor implementation of phasing out two-stroke autorickshaws in the city. It has asked the state government to submit action taken reports every 15 days to the court.

Two-stroke autos ply in Kolkata despite court ban A COURT directive to stop polluting two stroke autorickshaws from plying on Kolkata roads has been rendered ineffective by the state government. The Calcutta High Court order dated July 18, 2008, to ban two-stroke autos by December 2008 was based on a notification issued by the state environment department. The state government however

: Even as commuters had a harrowing time today as most of the auto-rickshaws stayed off roads in the city and its outskirts protesting against the state government's decison to phase out petrol or diesel run two-stroke autos by 31 December, two rival auto unions were involved in a scuffle at Manicktola crossing this afternoon.