Matheran faces a choice | Hilltown's dilemma

Temperatures are rising in the salubrious hill station of Matheran, nestled in the Western Ghats, about 90 kilometres from Mumbai. And it’s not because of climate change. Locals and stakeholders in the tourism industry are split over the introduction of e-rickshaws as an alternative mode of transport here. For, Matheran has been a motor vehicle-free town since its inception, perhaps the only such hill station in India. Hand-pulled rickshaws and horses are the only modes of transport, while licensed porters and ponies help carry goods and essentials. Walking remains the preferred mode of commute for most locals (see A Green Getaway, below).Not everyone, however, is willing to perpetuate the quaint romanticism of Matheran, named so apparently after a local told then Thane district collector Hugh Poyntz Malet in Marathi—“Mathe raan haay (There is a forest up there)”—when he discovered it in May 1850. In 2021, retired schoolteacher Sunil Shinde, 61, moved the Supreme Court, seeking the introduction of eco-friendly battery-operated rickshaws in the town. The apex court in May 2022 allowed the Maharashtra government to implement a pilot project to assess the plan’s feasibility. The trial, conducted from December 5, 2022, to March 4, 2023, saw 51,891 people use seven e-rickshaws deployed by the municipal council over the three months. The hill station also happens to be an Ecologically Sensitive Zone (ESZ), notified as such by the Union ministry of environment and forest in 2003. (It prohibits any industrial or development activities detrimental to the environment.) Now, the Matheran ESZ monitoring committee—formed as mandated under the 2003 notification and responsible for ensuring that all developmental activities confirm to ecological norms—is in the process of recommending to the SC that e-rickshaws be allowed to operate for an entire year. “We have accepted that a three-month period is too short for judging the suitability of e-rickshaws,” says K.P. Bakshi, a former IAS officer who heads the committee. “So, the committee felt [the trial] should go through the entire cycle of one year, [covering] the rainy season, tourist season and non-tourist season. Thus, we will know the real impact, advantages and disadvantages.”Ask Shraddha Ramane, 27, who teaches at the local convent school, where her daughter Unnati is a senior kindergarten student. Going to school is a daily ordeal for the five-year-old girl, who has to walk four kilometres all the way to her school, and then cover the same distance—again on foot—on her way back in the afternoon. “These long walks leave her so tired,” says her mother, “that she ends up sleeping for three hours when she comes back. After that, she’s left with no time to play or participate in other extra-curricular activities.” Kalpana Patil, the headmistress of a local high school, says the brief trial run of the e-rickshaws demonstrated what a boon they can be for school kids, some of whom from nearby hamlets have to walk up to 10 km on either way. “Children, who were earlier worn out after the long walk and listless in class, had a spring in their step when they travelled by e-rickshaws,” she says. “Learning outcomes and attendance also showed a marked improvement.”Matheran resident Sandeep Shinde, 57, believes that e-rickshaws will make life easier not just for the young but also for the elderly and the physically challenged. “Not all locals can afford to hire a hand-pulled rickshaw or a horse,” he says. This has forced many senior citizens to remain confined to their homes. A one-way horse ride between Dasturi Naka, beyond which vehicles are barred, and Matheran’s central market, located three kilometres away, costs about Rs 350 per person. The fare can go up to around Rs 500 for rickshaws, pulled by three people up a steep incline, the earnings later divided between them and the owner. In comparison, e-rickshaws charged Rs 35 per passenger. For students, the fare was just Rs 5.Even a Tata Institute of Social Sciences study—‘Mobility, Livelihood and People: Understanding the Social Environmental Impact of E-Rickshaw Implementation in Matheran’—conducted earlier this year, found that on an average, two members per household in the town have to commute 8 km daily. The lack of mechanised transport, it noted, “affects people’s ability to live a normal life”, with women and children particularly bearing the social cost. Due to the transport costs involved, people also end up paying more for essentials. A gas cylinder, for instance, costs Rs 150-200 extra depending on the distance covered from the depot. e-rickshaws crowding a street during the pilot project. (Photo: Anis Shaikh)The e-rickshaw proposal, however, has raised the hackles of some others, who fear that this new mode of transport will change Matheran as they know it and push it down the slippery slope of environmental degradation. Says Maria Vaz, who owns the Hope Hall Hotel, one of the oldest establishments in town, “E-rickshaws will open the doors for regular vehicles and asphalted roadsâæand spoil the ethos of Matheran.” There is also the question of the livelihoods of rickshaw-pullers and horse owners, who stand to lose out to the cheaper e-rickshaws.But the matter at hand is complex, and even rickshaw-pullers/owners and horse owners are divided on the subject. At the bustling marketplace, Ramesh Sapkal, 69, who has pulled a rickshaw for 25 years, says he will never wish this inhuman practice upon his son Akshay, a Class 12 student. A few rickshaw owners, most of whom are locals, also want this mode of transport to phase out gradually. But rickshaw-pullers, mostly migrants from Maharashtra’s backward regions like Vidarbha and Marathwada, are less enthusiastic. “The owners might get licences for e-rickshaws, but what about us?” asks one. A few kilometres away at Echo Point, a popular tourist spot, horse owners Shabab Qureshi and Murad Shaikh also have worry writ large on their faces. “We have nothing except horses to earn our livelihood,” says Qureshi. “How will we fill our stomachs?” asks Shaikh. Did their business take a hit in the three months that the e-rickshaws were running in Matheran? Did the tourists shun horses and hand-pulled rickshaws for e-rickshaws? Of the 51,891 people who used e-rickshaws, 18,833, or 26.5 per cent, were tourists, but they accounted for just 4.5 per cent of the 416,700 tourists who visited Matheran in those three months. Nonetheless, rickshaw-pullers and horse owners claim it was enough for their business to take a substantial hit. “Any slump in our earnings will have a cascading effect not just on Matheran’s economy,” says Ashatai Kadam, who heads a union of horse owners, “but also on the nearby tribal hamlets that provide hay and feed for our horses.” Advocate Lalit Mohan Dhiman, one of the lawyers who represent the rickshaw-pullers/owners’ body, Shramik Rickshaw Chalak Malak Seva Sanstha, shares that in its hearing on July 12, the Supreme Court observed that it will permit e-rickshaws to be operated only by the existing rickshaw-pullers to safeguard their interests. It will also help prevent traffic-related issues.So what about the horse owners? Sunil Shinde, who moved the apex court in the first place, says his intention is not to do away with horses or put the town’s environment at risk. “Tourists who want to use them (horses) for the novelty of it,” he says, “will do so regardless of e-rickshaws.” Locals like him, he adds, just want a proper mode of transport, and by no means want Matheran to be thrown open to all kinds of vehicles. Currently, ambulances and fire tenders are allowed in the town, but residents complain that ambulances are misused to ferry politicians or their guests. “There have been instances when pregnant women in labour have delivered on a hand-pulled rickshaw,” says Shinde. “We are just seeking a limited access to vehicles.” But for a town caught in a time warp, that leap into the future won’t come easy.Edited By: Arindam MukherjeePublished On: Aug 11, 2023

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