Indian city to outlaw rickshaw runners
INDIA: They have been a feature of Kolkata's streets for more than a
century, but communist authorities in the sprawling city want an end to
the "inhuman" sight of emaciated men pulling rickshaws.
Next week the communist-ruled state of West Bengal plans to introduce
legislation that will phase out back-breaking rickshaw-pulling in the
city of 13 million people, increasingly known as a high-tech centre and
home to many swanky shopping malls, coffee shops and bars.
"This inhuman mode of transport should have stopped years ago," said
communist city mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya.
"We can't imagine one man sweating and straining to pull another
man." Talk of ending the cheap and popular form of transport has been
going on for years, but the state government said an end was now in
sight with plans to amend the 1919 Hackney-Carriage Act governing
slow-moving vehicles.
"The bill will be placed before the house in the coming week," said
West Bengal Transport Minister Subhas Chakravarty.
"Hand-pulled rickshaws do not match with the changing scenario of the
city," he said. The ruling Left Front has a massive majority in the
294-member house.
But the announcement has thrown the spindly legged, rag-clad rickshaw
pullers - immortalised as a symbol of Kolkata in books such as Dominique
Lapierre's "City of Joy" - into turmoil.
City authorities say there are 5,937 registered hand-pulled
rickshaws, but a Congress party lawmaker said the number was more than
40,000.
The men, known as "human horses", worry about how they will earn
their living when the ban takes effect and their rickshaws can no longer
ply the eastern city's serpentine, congested alleys.
"Running a rickshaw is no more inhuman than working in the mines or
in the fields," said Somen Mitra, leader of the Kolkata Rickshaw Pullers
Union.
"The rickshaw pullers must be offered a proper rehabilitation
package" so they can earn their living after the ban, he said.
KOLKATA, Sunday, AFP.
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