NEW DELHI – It is getting late, and Suredr Kumar parked his auto-rickshaw in one of the entrances to the Indian Fort, trying his luck on any of the hundreds of locals and foreigners visiting one of the popular tourist spots here before he calls it a day.
“I earn 400 rupees (equivalent to roughly P400) a day; somehow, it is enough for my family,” said Kumar in a local dialect translated by local interpreter Om Parkash.
Kumar, 40, is just one of millions of Indian drivers of auto-rickshaw, a three-wheeled vehicle equivalent to the tricycle in the Philippines but whose popularity is similar to that of the Pinoy jeepney.
So popular that its presence is strongly felt in almost all of the roads of India, including major thoroughfares, with its yellow-on-top and green-below color.
“It is a very popular means of transportation here in New Delhi, and even in the whole India because the fare is cheap,” said Parkash.
Cheap indeed for the Indians, but unlike in the Philippines where passengers are charged individually, the rickshaw has a meter with a flagdown rate of 19 rupees and 6.50 rupees for every succeeding kilometer.
The rickshaw has a maximum of three passengers and Parkash said it is normal practice for the passengers to divide the final fare among themselves.
But outside New Delhi on the way to Agra, it will be noticed that three more passengers are accommodated at the back of rickshaw, much like the local Pinoy word “sabit.”
The meter is located at the back of the driver facing the passenger, a very good measure to prevent the drivers from tinkering with it to jack up the fare illegally, or in other words, cheating the passengers like the way some taxi drivers do in the Philippines.
What he likes about the rickshaw, Kumar said, is its maneuverability, especially in crowded areas, and during heavy traffic in busy roads.
The only problem that rickshaw drivers confront is that they are not allowed to transport people to some fancy hotels in this city.
Parkash said all auto rickshaws in New Delhi are CNG-fed (Compressed Natural Gas) as mandated by the law, which, he said, was crafted and implemented to reduce pollution in India’s capital.
The green in the theme color of rickshaws, he said, is a sign that they are eco-friendly.
Auto rickshaw is also locally referred to as “tuktuk,” a word popularized by some foreigners which refers to the same vehicle used in Thailand.
But it was learned that the rickshaw is also being used as vehicles for hire in some parts of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and even in some parts of Europe.
Kumar is lucky that he owns the rickshaw he is driving, since he no longer has to worry over the daily rent (like the boundary system in the Philippines) to the operators, which most rickshaw drivers here do.
The rent depends on how much the owners would charge, aside from the daily CNG consumption amounting to 100 rupees.
Parkash said rickshaw is locally manufactured in India, with some financial institutions helping local residents buy one through affordable loan systems.
And it works since not only it is used as for-hire vehicle, but is also equally helpful for family use and even in the transport of some small local goods to the public market.
Meanwhile in another part of the Indian capital, businessman M. Yusoph Lone is excited again. The 31st Indian Handicrafts Gifts Fair (IHFG) has just opened and he is hoping that he could strike a deal again with foreign buyers of shawls.
“We have been participating on this event because it gives us an exposure in the international market. It is in this place where we meet with foreign businessmen and export some of our products that they would in turn sell in their respective countries,” said Lone while he was tending his stall at the India Expo Centre and Mart in Greater Noida here.
For a small trader like him, Lone has to grab this twice-a-year opportunity to meet more clients abroad, to convince them to order his products that would eventually expand his market at the international level, aside from those in Japan, some parts of Europe and Japan which he has already been supplying with shawls.
Lone is actually one of the 2,300 exhibitors of the four-day fair of more than 900 handicrafts products from all of the 28 states of India, all of them have the same objective of luring foreign buyers to try their products.
The biannual Handicrafts and Gifts Fair is the marketing strategy started by the Indian government in 1994 not only to maximize the exposure of the Indian craftsmanship globally but also to boost the export of handicrafts products that would eventually help millions of Indian artisans, mostly women and economically-deprived people.
And it worked because from the US$ 307 million generated in 1986-1987 period, the export of handicrafts has already ballooned to a whopping US$1.8 billion in the 2009-2010 period.
