E-rickshaw ended practice of 'man carrying another man': Gadkari in UP

Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari said on Saturday that electric rickshaws have put an end to the "inhuman" practice of one man carrying another man as bulk of cycle rikshaw pullers switch to driving electric vehicles.

Gadkari was speaking at a session on e-mobility and its future at the UP Global Investors Summit in Lucknow.

"I started the e-rickshaw. I remember Mulayam Singh Yadav had said in Lok Sabha about how Ram Manohar Lohia had vowed to never sit in a cycle rickshaw which had a man carrying another man. I passed the bill and then a battle went on in the Supreme Court," Gadkari said at the session. "One crore people carried other people through rickshaw. After the e-rickshaw came, 90% of those one crore people are riding the e-rickshaw and earning about Rs 1,000 per day and it has put an end to the inhuman practice of a man carrying another man."


Elaborating further on the potential of electric vehicles from Uttar Pradesh's point of view, Gadkari suggested that chief minister Yogi Adityanath should adopt the "London transport model" built around electric buses. He said the model consists of nine operators which run the same coloured (red) buses.