Police plan to acquire big cranes hits CNG hurdle

Sunday , Aug 02, 2009
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

The traffic police's proposal to get more cranes, including bigger ones to lift SUVs and luxury car models, seems to have hit a roadblock. Sources said that in wake of Delhi government's decision to convert all heavy vehicles in the city to CNG, the police are finding it tough to procure cranes.

In May this year, the traffic police had floated tenders to hire 150 cranes, including those with higher capacity to lift bigger vehicles. But the response, said sources, has been lukewarm. "Earlier this year, the Delhi government had come out with a notification making CNG mandatory for all heavy vehicles registered in the city. The last date for this was June-end, which has been extended by two months now. Since cranes come in this category, the owners are not willing to invest in new vehicles till the fate of the notification is known. This has resulted in a shortage of cranes,'' said a senior traffic police officer.

Also, it is feared that cranes may not be able to run efficiently on CNG and the retrofitting of CNG kits could affect the pulling power of the vehicles. According to the plan, the additional cranes should have been put on roads by now.

The tender is for hiring an additional 150 cranes, including 110 small cranes with a capacity of 1-2 tons. Another 40 high-capacity cranes with a capacity of 1.4 to 3 tons are being added to the fleet to tow away large luxury cars, jeeps and SUVs.

The cranes being used by the cops at present can not tow away large cars. In cases where these cranes have been used to tow away big cars, the front of the vehicles have been damaged. Currently, the traffic police has 53 cranes to deal with the problem of unauthorized parking all over the city. It has another 28 cranes but they are exclusively used to tow away vehicles in case of breakdown.