'World-class' Delhi can't tolerate cycle rickshaw

By Gaurav Sharma
02 Feb 2010


Confiscated rickshaws are dumped at MCD’s store before being dismantled

In order to accomplish their desire to make Indian Capital a 'world-class' city, the elitist and myopic administrators of Delhi are pushing environmental friendly cycle rickshaw out of city to increase space for swelling number of polluting cars.

Sitting hunched with face cupped in his hands, pensive looking Dharmendra was restless. He would often rise on his toes to have a glance at his confiscated cycle rickshaw languishing in the backyard of walled MCD’s (Municipal Council of Delhi) rickshaw store. A sense of gloom and doom had descended upon him as he had been stripped of his only source of frugal subsistence in the city which cares only for the rich and the powerful.

The confiscation of rickshaw was a double whammy to his insurmountable problems. His wife, who had developed some complications during labour, was in dire need of blood. To save bus fare, poor Dharmendra opted to ride his cycle rickshaw to the blood bank. Caught unaware of the MCD’s rickshaw confiscation drive, he was nabbed on the way by Delhi Police and MCD officials and ended up losing his rickshaw before reaching his destination.

That day, nearly 150 cycle-rickshaws were impounded from the same area and dumped into the MCD’s rickshaw store which looks like a junkyard. Dreading over the prospect of not getting his rickshaw back, Dharmendra said, ‘How will I get the rickshaw back? I don’t have enough money to pay the heavy penalty or grease MCD officials’ palms”. His worry was not without reason. MCD, as a policy, dismantles the confiscated rickshaw, if the owner/puller fails to pay penalty within stipulated period.


Delhi’s administrators and the elites, who have considerable influence over policy making and public opinion, believe that cycle-rickshaws are an eyesore amongst shining cars and not eligible to ply on the Capital’s roads because they cause inconvenience to cars and other vehicles.

Ferrying people in their pedal powered three-wheelers, cycle-rickshaw pullers provide the cheapest mode of transportation in the Capital city of India. For elders, women and students, rickshaw is an easily available and reliable source of movement.


“There are areas where buses and autos do not ply and rickshaws are the only way of transportation in such areas. On the sprawling North Campus of Delhi University, rickshaw is essential for many students to move around,” says Vaibhav, a student of city’s Hansraj College.

New Delhi is getting ready to host 2010 Commonwealth Games, and the ‘city beautification drive’ for the Games has become a tool for these administrators to destroy shelters and livelihoods of poor rickshaw and handcart pullers. If the judiciary, which has often come to the rescue of the poor and marginalized of India, doesn’t put brakes to such drives, nearly 6,00,000 cycle-rickshaw pullers and their more than 2 million dependents, will lose their only source of livelihood. “Government should think of ways to spruce up the city rather than banning cycle-rickshaws. The traffic problem is not caused by cycle-rickshaws alone,” Vaibhav says.

There are many citizens who agree with Vaibhav. According to them, these non-motorized vehicles do not create as much problem as the motorized vehicles which cause fatal accidents, and are environmental hazards. “When the whole world is worried about the catastrophic climate change, these eco-friendly vehicles should have found government support and encouragement rather than wrath,” they say.

Ironically, the efforts of destitute are always disparaged in a country which is in awe of handful of elites. The Delhi administration is notorious for harassing, fleecing and hounding the poor migrants from other parts of India who earn their livelihood from rickshaw-pulling and street vending. The confiscation drives, daily assaults, extortion and sheer apathy of Delhi administration have brought misery to thousands of such poor and marginalized people.

The laws of the land are no less discriminating. According to the Cycle-Rickshaw Bye-Laws of 1960, “No person shall keep or ply or hire a cycle-rickshaw in Delhi unless he himself is the owner thereof and holds a license. No person will be granted more than one such license.”

The above clause reflects sheer injustice meted out to rickshaw pullers. A person or a company may own a whole fleet of cars, trucks, or even airplanes but owning more the one rickshaw will invite wrath of administration. On top of that acquiring that single licence is a Herculean task as licenses are not given round theyear. The MCD, at its discretion and convenience, decides the period for accepting the applications for license.

The MCD justifies this inane clause in the name of protecting rickshaw pullers from the greed of rickshaw owners who hire out their rickshaws to the pullers. According to MCD, these owners act as ‘rickshaw mafia’ and charge high rents of Rs. 40 to 50 per day from the rickshaw pullers.

However, the fact is MCD officials are hand-in-glove with such rickshaw mafia, many of them petty entrepreneurs who own fleets ranging from five to more than a thousand rickshaws. To acquire license for several rickshaws in bulk, owners have to grease the palms of MCD employees who issue licenses in the name of real or imaginary rickshaw pullers.

Narayan (name changed), who owns 45 rickshaws, says, “MCD officials would not make money if they legalise rickshaw plying business. First they ask us for bribes to issue licenses and then extort money from the puller because he is not the registered owner. Even after fulfilling their monetary appetite, they assault the rickshaw-pullers and confiscate the rickshaw to keep us on toes.”

Laxman, a rickshaw puller, says, ‘It does not help even if you are a licensed puller. The licensed rickshaw is also impounded without any reason. I hold a license but it has expired as I could not renew it. The MCD has stopped renewing license.”

“Driving a car without a license and putting others’ life at risk amounts to a penalty of few hundred rupees but riding a rickshaw without license invites confiscation. On top of it, the MCD officials often crush the confiscated rickshaws to no use,” rues Laxman.

Not all MCD officials are indifferent to the plight of rickshaw pullers. But they claim to be working under pressure from higher-ups. An MCD official who is not authorized to talk to media, said, “The class which travels in chauffer-driven cars and lives in gated community considers these rickshaw pullers as nuisance. They often get irritated when a rickshaw obstructs their big cars. Their access to the policymakers gives them an upper hand in having their way. We are reprimanded by seniors for not acting tough with rickshaw pullers”.

It’s difficult to predict whether the environment friendly cycle-rickshaw will survive the administration’s onslaught. The policymakers’ inclination towards car manufacturers and owners but apathy towards the poor self-employed citizens is all too evident. The administration conveniently forgets that it’s not the rickshaw but ever proliferating cars which end up choking roads and polluting environment. Any plan to popularize public transport by expanding network of Delhi Metro or DTC Bus service will be effective only if rickshaws are available in all localities to help people reach Metro station or bus stand and to come back home. But this common sense does not matter for those who would never use public transport. What they don’t realize is that rickshaw is not merely about traffic and environment. It is a critical source of livelihood for millions who do not have many options available to them.

Nightmare on the road

By Sudhirendar Sharma
28 Dec 2009

With increased influence of auto-industry over policy making, massive expenditures have been made to expand space for private cars. However, the near monopoly of car owners over road has not improved the transport either.

Widening roads and building new flyovers result in more cars on the roads
Festive season of Delhi makes car travel in the city dreadful. The new elevated highways and widened roads have seemingly made matters worse. The consequent traffic snarl has led to the widening of the next choked inter-section. The road widening work invariably excludes the pedestrians, the cycle and the rickshaws from the traffic plans but the intriguing puzzle remains - new roads contribute to increase in traffic.

If Delhi is a case in point, most roads have either been elevated or widened. The city, nicknamed as the city of flyovers, has invested over Rs 2,300 crore on road improvements in the current year, with provision for 30 per cent hike in the next year. However, nowhere does it assure that traffic movement would be smooth thereafter. The elevated roads built to ease traffic have often been found clogged, mocking at transport planners who made us think otherwise.

Like other cities, Delhi is witness to the enigma of the modern age. There is hardly a city in the world where traffic has not choked people's road space and lungs. The amazing consistency in the trend implies that, despite all that spending, some other factor must be at work. If there are better roads do people buy more cars? Economists have found it to be true, new roads release what they called 'suppressed demand' for people to buy more cars.

There is hardly a city in the world where traffic has not choked people's road space and lungs.
Delhiites are indeed expressing their suppressed demand - by adding over 1,000 new personal vehicles on city's overstretched roads each day; by switching from small to medium and from medium to big car in a reasonably short time; and by increasing the per capita number of cars. No one seems to care that the idling time due to traffic congestion costs Rs 11.5 crore every day and the air pollution is its undesired gain.


Instead of bolstering public transport, private car owners are pampered
It is Catch-22. Neither can people stop buying cars nor can manufacturers stop producing them. Yet, the traffic ought to run smoothly. As improvement in road infrastructure is proving ineffective, the task is to invent disincentives for people to keep their cars away. Could selective restriction on vehicle numbers reduce the number of cars on the road? Alternately, could reduction in parking spaces alongside introduction of congestion charges do the trick?

London, where billions have been spent on traffic management and urban motorways, hasn't found a solution. In just over a century since motorized transport was introduced in the city, then centre of empire, the door-to-door average speed hasn't shown any improvement. It was 19 km/hr during the horse drawn era whereas with cars it has slipped down to 18 km/hr. The congestion charge introduced by Mayor Ken Livingstone in 2003 hasn't been found effective either.

In just over a century since motorized transport was introduced in London, then centre of empire, the door-to-door average speed hasn't shown any improvement.
Where does this lead us to? It is clear that classical economics, which believes that people make their decisions entirely in terms of money, has got it wrong because it fails to understand why people behave the way they do. Traffic planners, on the other hand, seek more resources to improve existing infrastructure, knowing well that it may not work. Livingstone's unsuccessful idea was based on the assumption that people preferences are a factor of the price they pay.

The kind of economics that reduces everything to money may find it hard to understand what is going on. It is now an accepted fact that more the roads more the number of cars, at the cost of other forms of transport that are essentially environment-friendly - be it a pedestrian, a cycle or a rickshaw. The question worth considering is whether city roads are meant for cars only. Should 'rights' of other users not be protected on city roads?

Well-known transport theorist Martin Mogridge, author of Jam Yesterday, Jam Today and Jam Tomorrow, reckoned that traffic speed could be doubled just by reducing space for cars. It may seem a tough call, given that car manufacturers and owners have monopolized city roads, but is nevertheless a call worth taking. Else, in the absence of legal provision on 'right over road' attempts like the one to rid the historic Chandni Chowk of rickshaws will continue to be made.

Cars ought to compete for space with other forms of transport. The city administrators and traffic planners must consider creating 'disincentives' for cars from clogging the roads. By the end of his life, Mogridge had suggested that taxing the inefficient road user (the motorist) and subsidizing the efficient public transport could be an effective disincentive. However, not without first abandoning the expensive urban road building programs, and not before establishing the 'right over road' for other forms of non-commercial transport.