The state government?s diktat on replacing polluting three-wheelers and taxis in the Calcutta Metropolitan Area is likely to fall flat, given the constraints of automobile manufacturers.

December 31, the deadline for replacing smoke-belching vehicles, is too early for the companies to supply around 55,000 three-wheelers conforming to the Bharat Stage (BS) II emission standards and 15,000 taxis fulfilling the latest BS III criteria.

?The government should have initiated the process earlier,? said N.V. Hariharan, regional manager (east), Bajaj Auto Ltd. ?Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai have been successful in replacing polluting vehicles, as they had acted immediately after the Supreme Court order in 2003. Had the Bengal government taken the initiative six months ago, at least half the old vehicles could have been replaced in time.?

According to Hariharan, the delay will be caused in procuring LPG kits, which have to be imported. ?If we place an order today, it will take at least a year to replace all existing three-wheelers.??

General manager (sales) of Piaggio Victor Shome agreed: ?It is not an easy task, as the exercise involves a lot of money, availability of vehicles, guarantee of payment, test drives and much more. The other metros have been successful as they had started much earlier.?

Hindustan Motors Ltd, too, could not give any assurance to the transport department on supplying 15,000 BS III taxis. ?The overall condition of our factory is not good enough to supply so many vehicles by the deadline. Moreover, the company has just started manufacturing BS III vehicles.?

In Delhi, all 60,000 three-wheelers had been replaced by CNG-driven vehicles in a year. In Mumbai, too, all autos now run on green fuel. More than half the polluting three-wheelers in Chennai have been replaced, and the process is in full swing in Ahmedabad.

The reasons for the success in these cities, officials said, were a strong political will, proper monitoring, mobilisation of funds and timely procurement of new vehicles.

?Calcutta is lagging behind. The operators will try to ignore rules but the government will have to be firm and compel the owners to replace their vehicles,? said Bajaj Auto?s Hariharan.

?This apart, the government should provide some incentives to auto operators, like waiving sales tax and a three-year relief from paying road tax. Like the governments in Delhi and Maharashtra, the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government, too, should help three-wheeler owners obtain bank loans to buy new vehicles,? he added.

Transport minister Subhas Chakraborty will hold another round of discussions with two autorickshaw manufacturers on Wednesday to formulate a strategy on replacement of existing vehicles.

?I have held meetings with senior officials of nationalised banks and urged to provide loans to autorickshaw operators. As for incentives, I have discussed the issue with the finance department, but it has not made any commitment,? Chakraborty said.