The conversion of any vehicle to LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) in Calcutta is illegal.

This is not an April Fool’s Day stunt, but the bitter truth. For, no LPG kit manufacturer in town is authorised to take part in the fuel conversion process — proof of how the state government has been fooling us every single day.

Who is to blame? The slothful transport department in the ‘do-it-now’ Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government that has failed to give the kit manufacturers “state approval”, mandatory for them to equip vehicles converting to a cleaner fuel.

“In all other states, this approval never takes more than 15 days to come through. But here, we have been waiting since 2006 for ratification,” said the representative of a kit manufacturing company.

A joint petition submitted by 10 such companies to transport secretary Sumantra Chowdhury on Tuesday said: “We would like to bring to your notice that no kit manufacturer/supplier has obtained state approval from the transport department (and) the matter is pending since 2006. Without state approval, legal sale and retrofitment of LPG/ CNG kits cannot be carried out.”

So, transport minister Subhas Chakraborty’s recent promises to convert autorickshaws and other polluting commercial vehicles to LPG is yet another attempt to fool a city being choked by vehicular pollution.

“I cannot comment on the allegation, but the process for giving permission to LPG kit manufacturers is on,” Ranjit Maity, the joint secretary of the transport department, said later.

For the kit manufacturers, now operating throughout the country, the petition is a desperate attempt to get the conversion wheels moving. If this fails, the kit manufacturers plan to move court or pull out of Bengal.

“This petition has been necessitated because all companies have submitted their application to the transport department with valid approval certificate issued by central government agencies,” stated the kit manufacturers, adding that all that the transport department needs to do is “some routine paperwork”.

The go-slow since 2006 is in sharp contrast to the experience from Delhi to Coimbatore, where conversion to clean fuel is a fast-track reality. In Calcutta, the fight against foul fumes is a smoky mirage.

Last week, Calcutta High Court asked petitioner Subhas Dutta to submit the Delhi model so that a similar clean-air roadmap can be followed here. “In Delhi, conversion to CNG was the key to the fight against vehicular pollution. But the Bengal government is doing everything to delay conversion,” fumed an environmentalist.

Want further proof of the farce being played out by the government? “The transport department has invited and accepted tenders from us to convert autorickshaws to LPG, not once but thrice, though none of us has the valid state sanction,” said one of the petitioners.

CM Sir, we Calcuttans living in a gas chamber demand an explanation.