Six-seater rickshaw drivers promise a mugging-free ride

Officials say these rickshaws have yet to obtain fitness certificates and are operating illegally.

KARACHI:

In yet another effort to give buses a run for their money, rickshaw drivers have come up with a unique six-seater arrangement for their fast and affordable means of transportation in Karachi.

As the number of muggings in the decades-old buses and their condition make them an unpopular choice, the new rickshaw drivers promise a mugging-free ride as well. Powered by 4-strokes 200 CC gasoline engine, this new class of rickshaws look exactly like the CNG rickshaws that have been plying the city roads for quite some time. Their unique feature is the capacity to hold six people in its back seat. Unlike the motorcycle rickshaws, the six-seater ones are more powerful, comfortable and have good body balance.



Usually stationed under flyovers and on busy intersections, the new rickshaws can be found at almost all busy thoroughfares in Liaquatabad, New Karachi, Landhi, Korangi and Saddar, where they operate on their specified routes.

“Instead of hanging on the roofs of buses or pushing all the way to get space inside a bus, it is good to travel by a rickshaw,” said Kashif Shah Nawaz, a resident of Manzoor Colony, who travels every day on the six-seater rickshaw to get to a private company where he works. “There is no safety in buses where you can get mugged,” he explains. “You can also get hurt in these buses if you consider that their body does not fulfill safety requirements.”



Sami Khan, an Intermediate student, also uses these rickshaws every day to get to his coaching centre in Defence. “It takes me less than five minutes to reach the coaching centre when I had to wait at the stop for 20 minutes to get a bus,” he said. “It’s worse on a day when CNG supply is off because you have to wait for hours.”

Following the system

The owners of these rickshaws are following pretty much the same system as public buses. “We have our designated routes along a 20-kilometre stretch of a road,” said Muhammad Bilal, who drives his rickshaw between Jail Chowrangi and Qayyumababd on route number G-26. “We charge Rs10 per person and cover the distance within 20 minutes.”

According to Bilal, the vehicle is powerful enough to carry up to nine people including a driver. There are, however, 12-seater rickshaws available as well, he added. Bilal makes up to Rs500 a day.

Ghulam Habib, another rickshaw driver, has to pay Rs10,000 to the company, which gave him the rickshaw on installments. “We don’t have route permits from the Sindh government but we will soon get them,” he said, adding that they are forced to pay bribes to traffic policemen at check-posts until they receive their permits. Each six-seater rickshaw owner submits Rs30 to the rickshaw-stand supervisor, who then pays the traffic police at the end of the month, said Habib, adding that the traffic police make it worse for them at the end of the month to make sure we pay them.

“These vehicles do not have any documents, no route permits, no fitness certificate and the drivers don’t even have licences,” a traffic sergeant pointed out, requesting to maintain anonymity. “Still they are plying on the roads.” Even though the policeman denied they charge bribes from the rickshaw drivers, he failed to explain why they are allowing them to ply on the roads without permits and licences. “The higher authorities are responsible for this,” he smiles sheepishly. The Sindh transport department has yet to give permission to these six-seater rickshaws and they are operating illegally, pointed out transport deputy secretary Ali Nawaz Panhwar, adding that it is the duty of the police to detain them and stop them from plying on the roads.  According to Panhwar, the six-seaters have fitness problems and have passenger safety issues, which need to be fixed before they qualify for a fitness certificate.

Sale of 6-seater rickshaws went up drastically in last two months

These six-seater rickshaws came from Lahore but now they are manufactured in Hyderabad as well, Ghulam Hussain, a dealer of CNG rickshaws, six-seater rickshaws and qingqis on Akbar Road in Saddar, told The Express Tribune.

“They are just a modified form of CNG rickshaws, only larger in size.” According to Hussain, a six-seater rickshaw can cost anywhere between Rs180,000 to Rs195,000. Rozgar, Sazgar, Tuk Tuk, Super Power, Super Star, Unique, Tez Raftar and Nayab are main brands. “Though they are in the market for over a year, but their sale have shot up drastically in the past two months,” he said, explaining that different dealers have started offering installments. Patel Para is the largest market of these rickshaws in the city, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 2^nd, 2013.