Agartala, September 2 (TIWN): The Tripura state legislative assembly today passed The Tripura Rickshaw Regulation Bill, 2014 amidst heavy uproars from the opposition benches. Former opposition leader and MLA Ratan Lal Nath, MLA Ashish Kumar Saha and others severely opposed the Bill in the House after the subject was raised for discussion by Speaker Ramendra Chandra Debnath.

The opposition member said that current version of the Bill has marred the spirit of the rickshaw regulation mechanism. The Bill can’t equally leverage manually driven rickshaws and battery operated e-rickshaws; the two are just not compatible to be compared for setting standards, they said.

Opposition MLAs further said that the current version of the Rickshaw Regulation Bill didn’t have any regulation or guideline for fare fixation save a mention that it would be done in later phases. The Bill didn’t have provisions for accident insurance among other things as well, they said.

The Bill was later passed in voice votes from the treasury benches. The opposition members raised serious objection to the bill and staged walk out from the House.

The Bill that was passed today overs all forms of rickshaws including manually driven ones, battery operated mechanized rickshaws. It to bring all vehicles in the three-wheeler segment under the jurisdiction of the state laws.

The battery operated rickshaws moved freely without any legal binding for the last one year amidst heavy protests from hydrocarbon driven locomotives like petrol or CNG auto rickshaws.