Kolkata (PTI): With a section of autorickshaw operators backed by opposition Trinamool Congress intensifying its agitation, the West Bengal government has decided to seek at least three month's time to implement the Calcutta High Court order banning the polluting two-stroke vehicles from the eastern metropolis.

The Left government state's initiative to seize autorickshaws from the New Year's day onward following the July 18 order of the court to ban the vehicles from January 1 this year was met with violent resistance in some parts of Kolkata.

Four buses were burnt and several others damaged by the rampaging drivers and owners of the autorickshaws in two days as Trinamool Congress (TC) supremo Mamata Banerjee took up cudgels for them and sat on a night-long dharna near Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's residence.

Auto drivers and owners, who had plied in the city streets under the banner of CPI(M)'s trade union wing CITU, switched allegiance to Trinamool Congress and instead of red flags, the three-wheelers were seen sporting TC's 'tri-colour'.

Alarmed at this, the state government stopped its drive to seize illegal autos and decided to seek at least three months' time to implement the court order.

All two-stroke autos were to be scrapped from the metropolis, which has the highest incidence of chest and lung diseases among citizens, and replaced by four-stroke LPG-run three-wheelers in the nearly five and a half months of time that the court gave the government to implement its order.