West Bengal's Left Front government is sitting on a powder keg even as Mamata Banerjee walks around with a lighted match. In a year in which the Lok Sabha elections are due and a hobbling economy has spread widespread anxiety in the cities, the quasi-ban on Kolkata's polluting auto rickshaws is like the last straw for the state government. Despite being pulled up by the court a number of times for dithering, the government did not want to antagonise the auto lobby. This time, it is clearly unable to handle the High Court's blanket ban on two-stroke autos from the beginning of 2009. When the state government began rounding up errant auto rickshaws in early January, there were sporadic outbreaks of rioting by the drivers. This prompted the main opposition party, the Trinamul Congress, to step in on the drivers' behalf. It is believed that the Trinamul-backed Auto Bachao Committee, which had only 10 per cent of the 700,000 drivers in its fold, now has 40 per cent. Fearing further erosion of support, the state government has appealed to the High Court to extend the date for the ban to take root till 31 July, citing the two days' violence as the reason. The court, however, ordered it to submit a progress report on the ban every fortnight, and a Bench consisting of Chief Justice S.S. Nijjar and Justice Pinaki Ghosh is now monitoring the progress. State transport minister Subhas Chakraborty has been telling the unions that the government would 'facilitate' bank loans in order to obtain the four-stroke autos in replacement of the polluting ones. "We are bound to obey the court orders - but to change the entire auto fleet to four-stroke, we need some time. The process has already started." Praddip Saha, secretary of the Auto Bachao Committee, claims, "The existing two-stroke auto engine can be converted to lpg or battery by attaching retro-fitment kits to make it non-polluting," and have appealed to the court with documents. Therefore, only 18,000 of the approximately 70,000 auto rickshaws have come forward for loans. The fact is that a large number of the autos plying in and around the city are illegal - some estimates say there are as many as 30,000. They don't have registration papers or motor insurance, nor do the owners possess pan cards or bank accounts. State advocate-general Balai Ray has admitted in court that most autos have no valid registration papers, let alone other documentation. Nearly 85 per cent of the auto fleet is more than 15 years old; the Supreme Court had set this extent of wear and tear for its ruling on the Delhi case. "We are insisting that all our members go in for conversion to avoid the ban," says citu auto union secretary Kishore Ghosh, who denies that there are so many illegal vehicles. Auto driver Pinaki Haider says, "The government has used us as a vote bank. Now the time has come when they should pay back. They cannot ignore us." The issue came to light in April 2004 when the High Court asked the state government to take these three-wheelers off the roads in response to a public interest litigation (pil) filed by automobile expert Soumendra Mohan Ghosh. "There is no road map. Our government fails to create awareness among the auto owners about the long-term benefit of conversion," Ghosh says. "There are only 12 lpg outlets in the city against the 275 needed - something for which the oil companies and the state government should share the blame." Kolkata's air quality has been the source of much concern for some years now as the number of automobiles has increased. Upon another pil by environmental activist Subhas Datta, the High Court on 18 July 2008, gave a straightforward order: a ban on all two-stroke auto rickshaws from the end of last year. "With the High Court ban effective from the beginning of 2009, we now have a situation of so many illegal autos plying under the very nose of all concerned. This is what lumpen democracy can do," says Ghosh. It will now be interesting to see whether the state government can satisfy the court with progress reports to gain more time.