Rickshaws continue to thrive in Bangladesh

Press, 20 February 1986, Page 37

Rickshaws continue to thrive in Bangladesh

By

ANIS AHMED

of Reuter

Year after year the Bangladesh Government has schemed to rid its city streets of their worst traffic hazard — the rickshaw. Authorities blame the pedal-powered threewheeled vehicles for nearly 70 per cent of an average 2500 road deaths each year. But, each year, despite Government plans to replace the ancient form of transport with faster and safer ways for people to travel, the number of rickshaws continues to grow.

“Just like boats on the rivers and bullock-carts on dirt roads, rickshaws will perhaps stay on the streets of Dhaka and other cities for decades to come,” one rickshaw driver told Reuters as he pedalled past a crowded Dhaka intersection.

Abdul Jabbar, who said he was the leader of a rickshaw drivers’ union, dismissed fears that the tricycle riders would soon be forced to do someting else for a living.

“All bids to drive us off the streets have proved futile and impractical in the past and will do so in the future,” said Jabbar, aged 30, who has been

pedalling rickshaws for 14 years. Jabbar may sound overconfident, but, according to one traffic sergeant, he is not wrong. Sergeant Salahuddin Ahmed Based told Reuters that banning rickshaws could jeopardise the livelihood of up to a quarter of Dhaka’s six million people and indirectly affect thousands more. “Who is going to take such a risk when the country is reeling under abject poverty and unemployment, and the number of hungry people is increasing?” Sergeant Ahmed asked. Dhaka municipal officials agreed. They said 109,000 rickshaws ply Dhaka streets alone, each pedalled by three men on seperate shifts, and every driver is responsible for feeding an average of five people. Rickshaws are a means of daily transport for most residents in Dhaka and other cities where there are not enough buses or other transport, they said. Several thousand people also make, repair, or sell spare parts for rickshaws. A police officer, Abdur Raquib Khandaker, said at a seminar that most rickshaw drivers had mi-

grated to cities to escape umemployment in their villages. Most lived in city slums or had built their own shanties, he said. Mr Khandaker said the drivers were united in their defiance of any move to displace them financially or socially. “Once out of work they will almost certainly take to crime — murder, hijacking or theft — and controlling them would surely be too gigantic a task for the police or other law enforcement agents,” he said. The Government still clings to the hopes of finding a solution to the problem, but does not know what to do with drivers who would become unemployed if the rickshaws were banned. The Bangladesh Industry Minister, Sir Vice-Mar-shal Sultan Mahmud, announced last December that Dhaka University engineering students had designed a mechanised version of the rickshaw. He asserted the new design would be faster, accommodate more people and be viable in the long run. Designers told reporters each mechanised rickshaw would cost 20,000 taka (nearly $1332) —

twice the price of traditional ones. They hoped the price could be cut 30 or 40 per cent if the new rickshaws were manufactured commercially. Abdul Bari, a 25-year-old farmer who switched to pedalling a rickshaw when his land was flooded, said he lives hand-to-mouth and saves nothing. “Even if the Government starts selling mechanised rickshaws on a mass scale I won’t be able to buy one, and neither will many other drivers,” he said. Most drivers hire rickshaws at 15 taka (98c) for six hours, a quarter of their daily income. Alim Uddin owns 20 rickshaws, and admits business is good. But he refuses to rent out his vehicles at lower prices. “Maintenance costs, including the prices of spare parts, have trebled over the past 10 years while we have raised the charges only 50 per cent,” he said. Uddin said he won’t buy mechanised rickshaws because their maintenance will cost more. “Besides, where do I get trained drivers to pull them?” he said.