Lenin Sarani is a sea of heads during the rally by vano operators on Wednesday afternoon. Picture by Sanjoy Ghosh

Operators of motorised open vans known as “vanos” that ply in the districts brought traffic to a halt in the heart of the city for hours on Wednesday, demanding that the vehicles be legalised.

Vanos are three-wheeled cycle-vans retrofitted with discarded and stolen engines. These are used to transport people and goods. Apart from being unsafe, they ply on katatel, causing air pollution.

The way the vano operators blocked Lenin Sarani from 2pm to 4pm on Wednesday was as illegal as their vehicle: they were supposed to assemble at Wellington Square and not block any road.

Traffic had been affected since around noon as vano operators marched towards the city centre from Howrah and Sealdah stations. “There were multiple processions — some big, some small. The smallest had at least 400 people,” said a traffic sergeant.

About 12,000 vano operators congregated at the Subodh Mullick Square end of Lenin Sarani, cutting off traffic flow on the road and slowing vehicles to a crawl on CR Avenue, Ganesh Chandra Avenue, Nirmal Chandra Street and Esplanade East.

Thousands of people were delayed. Parimal Gupta, in his 70s, could not catch a train to Chennai as the taxi he was in was stuck at Burrabazar for over an hour. “He was alone, had luggage with him and couldn’t walk to the station,” said a relative of Gupta.

In an order issued about two years ago, Calcutta High Court had directed the district administrations to crack down on motorised vans. According to another high court order, only three-wheeled vehicles running on LPG or CNG can ply in the greater Calcutta area. The greater Calcutta area includes places as far as Kalyani, where the vanos ply with impunity.

“Vanos cause extreme pollution. They run on kerosene mixed with diesel and their exhaust is unfiltered,” said S.M. Ghosh, an expert on automobile emission.

“The engines are either locally made or of motorcycles and have low efficiency and poor combustion capacity. They thus belch out excessive smoke,” added Ghosh.

The three-wheelers do not have even the most basic features needed in a motorised vehicle because untrained hands fashion them out of cycle-vans in makeshift village units that lack infrastructure.

Vano operators claimed they had no option. “About 2 lakh rural people depend on income from running vanos. We are ready to abide by any regulation that the government imposes but they should not ban the vanos,” said a vano-owner from North 24-Parganas.