Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – In a bid to cut down pollution in one of the world's most polluted cities, the government is planning to phase out the fume-emitting and noisy three-wheeled bajaj and replace it with more environmentally friendly vehicles. However, the bajaj drivers and cooperatives that rent out the vehicles are concerned that they will have to bear the high cost of introducing the kancil.

The four-wheeled natural-gas powered vehicle travels at 60 kmh, almost twice the speed of the bajajs, and has a light-weight, fibre-glass body.

Jakarta's Road Traffic and Transportation department chief Buyung Atang said bajajs are the second-highest contributors of carbon dioxide in Jakarta. If they were banned, pollution levels could be cut by 25 per cent, he said.

However, bajaj cooperatives fear they will be the ones to pay for reducing air pollution in Jakarta. Mr Eric Yohannes, whose family has a fleet of 18 bajajs that it rents out to drivers in central Jakarta, is concerned that the kancil will be too expensive for his small family business.

The ever-changing rules over the licensing of public transport vehicles have already cost his family millions of lost rupiah in the last 30 years, he said. "I hope they don't make this rule like when the bejak was forbidden and it had to be thrown away; then the helicap was banned and had to be thrown away," he said, referring to Jakarta's first permitted cheap public taxis, the trishaws or bejaks, which were then replaced by motorised trishaws or helicaps.

But Mr Buyung said the kancil would be made affordable through a bajaj buy-back scheme, which would give the owners cash to buy the kancils. The buy-back scheme and a long-term credit scheme have not been approved yet.

Bajaj drivers who operate in some of the busiest parts of Jakarta say their profit margins are small and that they cannot afford to pay much more rent than they already do. Said one of them, Mr Sidik: "The cooperative would have to buy it. I can't buy it alone. At the most, bajajs can make 30,000 rupiah to 40,000 rupiah per day." This is equivalent to S$4.80 to S$6.40.

Mr Yohannes said he doubted the kancil would be as efficient as the bajaj, which thanks to the local mechanics' ingenuity have continued to run long past their use-by date. "These bajajs are all easy to repair. It only needs three hours before they are back on the streets again, whereas taxis take three or four days to repair. That's three days before you can earn money again," he said.