DHAKA city is a rickshaw-dominant one with many people using it for cost and convenience. It is the desired vehicle of the middle class and it is not just affordable but also serves to go where buses and auto-rickshaws certainly do not go or do want to go. The number of rickshaws and types are many too. And now, the government has just banned the motorised version citing safety reasons. Given the extreme lack of safety in most sectors, particularly fire hazards, one wonders what drove the authorities to do this. And two days later, it withdrew the ban. What does it sum up?
Although our World Bank-fed think tanks may not have spent much time thinking about this issue as a few of them are rickshaw users, these vehicles mean a lot to most citizens straddling several classes. Barring the upper class with multiple vehicles, most people use it and it is an integral part of that life. However, we really do not know how this sector operates and, so, the news about banning motorised rickshaws means little to many who matter. But it is an indicator of a society that sees the state agencies and regulators as producers of discomfort and impoverishment of the urban poor.
The advisory council of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority decided to ban battery-run rickshaws on Dhaka city roads. Meanwhile, the transport minister Obaidul Quader said that accidents were increasing due to motorcycles and battery-run easy-bikes across the country and the casualty rate is higher for these vehicles. 鈥楴o battery-run three-wheeler will run in Dhaka city. We had earlier banned this on 22 highways.鈥� He, however, did not cite any research or the options to a ban that will certainly affect the poor the most.
This is not the first time that the government has banned rickshaws and withdrawn such bans. A ban on rickshaws on the main roads was imposed in 2019, but post-pandemic situations made it redundant. Battery-run rickshaws seem to irk the government a lot. They were banned in 2014 and 2021, but the ban could not be seriously implemented because rickshaws are more important in the lives of millions than the activities of the government. In Dhaka, rickshaws matter, not the government. And it is the fourth time that this has happened.
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A pro-car government policy
NO MATTER what is the contemporary popular political slogan, Bangladesh, in general, in its urban zones, have a large impoverished population. After the Covid outbreak, this segment has increased. Rickshaws are, therefore, not just a city traffic management issue or problem but one of coping with emergencies. It lifts a large section of the urban poor into the survival zone.
The media reports that as many as 1.1 million pedal rickshaws operate in Dhaka, both registered and unregistered. Apart from helping millions to survive, they, as a sector, contribute more than Tk 30,000 crore to the economy, particularly the rural one. The shock to the system will be enormous and although muscle-powered rickshaws are not affected by the time being, the significant rise in unemployment will have a negative impact.
If that is no secret, why would such a government take such a step?
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Of efficiency and state
THE fact that the government had banned rickshaws before and failed to carry out such bans shows that these are not thought-through policies. Rickshaws are seen as chaotic agents of movement that do not fit into the 鈥榤odern鈥� imagination of the city. But then, the state itself may be challenged on that issue by others, too. Nobody will accuse successive governing models as 鈥榤odern鈥� and efficient. And, that is part of where the problem lies, a psychological problem of denial-based governance. Unless we come to terms with our lack of delivery capacity, we can never improve.
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Lifting of ban and what it means
A GOVERNMENT just recently elected deciding to ban a vehicle which the middle, mostly, and others as well use and then withdrawing the ban in a couple of days points to the big problem. It really does not know what the public opinion is and it really does not do its homework when enacting policies. Why the authorities have been following the same route year after year and imposing and withdrawing bans is a very strange method of governance, indeed.
The problem does not lie with the politicians but the bureaucracy that manages state agencies. While the government may think that there is no high political cost in such practice, it is the responsibility of the amlas to inform the government of what works and does not. That was not done.
This endless cycle of weak planning, impossible implementation objectives and the embarrassing scenario of retreat have become all too common. While it is true that there is no threat of any movement, the deeply distressing signal has been sent that it is not an efficient governance structure that is in place.
Clearly, they are unable to back their decisions with sense and competence. And that will encourage the toxic elements from loan defaulters to counterfeit currency dealers who will know that nothing is better for their kind of a business than a structure that is unable to manage governance needs properly.
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Afsan Chowdhury is a researcher and journalist.
