The Gujarat government is planning a fleet of distinctively coloured auto-rickshaws, very different from the green-yellow paint combination of three-wheelers plying the state roads today. It plans to offer a toll-free number, ‘109’. And it wants to turn the rickshaw into the poor man’s Rolls Royce with services such as phone, newspapers, bottled water and music.
The political leaders ranging from Gaddar of the Public War Group (PWG) to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi find an invaluable communication tool in the rickshaw. Gaddar wrote his first song on an auto rickshaw driver and now Modi plans a ‘dial-a-rickshaw’ service in Ahmedabad.
It is not as ludicrous as it may sound. Modi understands the pulse of his people and the way an autorickshaw connects with the masses. Whatever the motives, it is an innovative idea whose time may have come.
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05Nov
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