TEHRAN – There are plans underway for renovating the taxi fleet nationwide by replacing some 40,000 old taxis with new ones in the current [Iranian Calendar] year 1397 (March 2018–March 2019), said head of the taxi drivers’ union on Sunday.

The successful implementation of the plan depends on increasing budget by the banking system and the administration, ISNA quoted Morteza Zameni as saying.

He went on to say that the taxi fleet’s renovation plan started in May 2016 and till the date some 71,000 clunker taxis have been scrapped and some 61,000 new taxis have been delivered to drivers.

Still some 120,000 clunker taxis ply in Iran’s cities and their replacement needs allocating increased loans by banks, he highlighted.

The budget dedicated to the renovation plan doesn’t fit the great volume of requests and this has led to impeding the renovation process, Zameni added.

He also touched on plans for using hybrid and electric cars as taxis in current year. “Although these cars are expensive, if we want to fight air pollution, we have to show our determination.”

Replacing a fuel-powered car with an electric car will save some 940 million rials (nearly $19,000) for the country during 10 years, he concluded.

MAH/MQ/MG