Clean three-wheelers: downmarket at home, trendy in the West

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PHALTAN (SATARA), SEPT 3: It’s increasingly looked down upon in India, where sedans and SUVs are the rage. But a small firm in a small town near Pune has put its money on the humble cycle-rickshaw, has found buyers for it in the West and has even devised electric versions. And maybe, with the CNG calamity, it’s time for us in India to take note of it as well.

For the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) in non-descript Phaltan, 100-odd km from Pune, the innovations were originally intended for rural India. That they’ve found their way to the Urban West is a deviation from script they’ll happily accept.

Three rickshaws - called the Improved Pedal Rickshaw (IMPRA) - designed and developed at NARI have been bought by a British entrepreneur who plans to use them to show tourists the sights of London. A fourth has been picked up by an individual buyer from Germany; both buyers heard of the rickshaws through the NARI website.

‘‘It’s a simple idea but a lot of thought went into designing the IMPRA in 1995; we re-engineered the cycle rickshaw to make it simpler for rickshaw pullers,’’ says NARI director Anil Rajvanshi.

The remodelled, two-seater vehicle - which costs around Rs 7,000 - has a three-speed gear system with back wheel brakes. Two chain drives, instead of the usual single long one, and ball bearings that act as shock absorbers make it easy for the driver to pull it even on a gradient of six percent without dismounting, says Rajvanshi.

That done, the five-man NARI team developed the non-polluting Motor-Assisted Pedal Rickshaw (MAPR), an improvised vehicle run on a DC electric motor powered with two batteries. A project funded by the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources, the MAPR can carry two passengers at a speed of 10-15 km/hour uphill, claims NARI.

Five of these should be plying on the campus of the University of Pune by next month; the Agra Tourism Development Corporation has also shown interest and a batch of 20 will be readied over the next six months.

NARI’s latest model is the ELECSHA, an autorickshaw powered by lead acid deep-discharge batteries. Yet to be test-marketed, the ELECSHA can carry two passengers at a speed of 30 kmph, a single charge lasting 60 to 70 km.

It hasn’t been a smooth journey, though, for the mechanical engineer from IIT, Kanpur. gave up the American dream to return to India with his agronomist wife Nandini Nimbkar, an agronomist (now president, NARI) in 1981 ‘‘because engineers should address rural problems through technology.’’

He soon found the road a little more rocky than he’d imagined. The biggest obstacle, he says, has been marketing. ‘‘We’re a research institute and are looking for manufacturers for these cycle-rickshaws. Cycle-rickshaw manufacturers whom I have approached in places like Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra and Hyderabad aren’t willing to risk investing in what they call a ‘grey market.’