Sri Lanka to see brightly coloured mini cab service replacing tuk-tuks

Sri Lanka is set to see brightly coloured mini cab service replacing tuktuks in another ambitious initiative of the Finance Ministry after several of its earlier unsuccessful attempts to curtail three wheeler imports.

The New Year will witness, a considerable number of three wheel owners stepping into mini cab services with the financial facility being offered by the Treasury, official sources predicted.

A novel scheme introduced under the Enterprise Sri Lanka programme is to provide concessionary loans up to Rs. 2 million to three wheel owners to convert to a safer and comfortable mini taxi service with small cars, the Finance Ministry announced.

The government will bear 75 per cent of the interest rate with three-wheel owners, who operate their own three wheelers and who are above 35 years of age, are entitled to this concessionary loan.

This move comes at a time where Indian automobile manufacturers are eying new avenues to rebuild their fifth largest and fastest growing car market in Sri Lanka badly hit by the recent raft of measures towards curtailing vehicle imports, industry sources said.

The value of Indian car imports came down to US$ 36 million in 2017- 18 from $ 300 million about three to four years ago totally wiping out the Indian small car market in the country.

A 20- member delegation from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) held fruitful and cordial meetings with Sri Lankan authorities to get some relief from the 2019 budget.

But the Finance Ministry noted that “there will not be any reduc- tion in taxes imposed on small car imports as no such decision has been taken so far to change the taxation basis.”

Under the present circumstances, at least one Indian small car brand “Quadricycle”- micro car and one locally assembled Chinese car are available in the local market at affordable prices for three wheel owners if they are willing to replace tuk tuks under the government’s loan scheme, motor traders said.

Subcompact SUV Tata Nexon, Bajaj Auto’s Qute Quadricycle and Micro Panda GS were among them, they said.

This move to promote minicabs instead of three wheelers was made as a 2018 budget proposal to promote electric three wheelers replacing fossil fuel tuk-tuks stipulating a facility of 10 per cent loan to Value ( LTV) ratio for leasing companies for buyers.

There are 1.5 million three wheelers on local roads and the government’s intention is to remove all these three wheelers from operation by providing electric tuk- tuks on easy payment terms under this budget proposal.

According to this suggestion made in November 2017, non-roadworthy three wheelers were to be discarded and sold as scrap and other roadworthy tuk-tuks were to be exported to countries like Bangladesh.

But this proposal is still to materialise as only eight to 25 per cent of the promises made in the 2018 budget has been fulfilled, or making some progress, an analysis of the budget proposals and their status revealed noting that the Finance Ministry Implementation Unit has not fulfilled its duties.

The Ministry of Finance will also incorporate a subsidised loan s cheme t o enabl e three-wheeler drivers to invest in a multitude of additional services, including meters, Wi- Fi, and GPS facilities, that would act as value- added services that are already provided to consumers; both domestic and tourists.

It is also making a proposal to encourage entrepreneurship amongst the spouses of three-wheeler drivers.