HILLTOWN'S DILEMMA

Motor vehicle-free since its inception, this quaint hill town is now mulling e-rickshaws on its roads. Locals are torn between ease of commute and preserving Matheran’s ethos

- Dhaval Kulkarni

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).

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.