The Punjab government has recently rescinded its earlier order banning the locally designed and fabricated popular ‘Jugaad Rehri’ vehicles, powered by all manner of diverse power packs and fitted with assorted innovative attachments which defy all accepted principles of automotive science and design.
On the instructions of chief minister Bhagwant Mann, the police have withdrawn their April 18 order proscribing these bizarre, but highly innovative unregistered smoke-belching vehicles, known variously as Maruta’s and Gharukka, on the grounds that they were responsible for a growing number of road accidents in the state.
By retracting the veto on Rehris, the newly elected CM was responding to pressure from opposition parties, who claimed that outlawing these vehicles which ply across Punjab, ferrying farm produce, people, livestock and even garbage, would render unemployed thousands of people, principally in rural areas. In his directive, Mann had stated that his government’s aim in withdrawing this embargo was to provide employment to people, and not snatch it from them.
