Drivers demand govt lifts ban on loader rickshaws

Three-wheelers were banned in August after Punjab govt declared them unfit for roads

MULTAN: Loader rickshaw drivers staged a demonstration against ban on plying three-wheelers in Multan on Monday.

The protesters gathered at Lakkar Mandi Chowk and blocked the road for hours against the government’s ban on plying loader rickshaws in the city. They shouted slogans against the police and local administration and demanded immediate removal of the ban.

The rickshaw drivers said that the matter should be viewed as a human issue rather than a legal affair as it was a source of earning for a large number of people.



They maintained that it was not an administrative or legal case. It was the case of hundreds of thousands of drivers who feed their families and of those who use them daily for transportation of goods.

The protesters said the people rely on six seater CNG rickshaws in the absence of buses and circular trains. They demanded of the government to make arrangements and give some time for registration of the three-wheelers.

Loader rickshaws and six seater CNG rickshaws, though unregularised and without any route permits, had become an alternative transport and carriage source for the people of the city in the last two years, providing much needed competition for the long-running mini-trucks, buses etc. However, they were banned in August this year following the Punjab government’s decision, which declared them unfit for the road.

The transport issue has remained a long-standing bone of contention between the authorities and the dwellers of the city, which is expanding with each passing day. Numerous transport schemes have been initiated by the government in the past to cater to the increasing needs of the city, but none of them sufficed, nor did they continue.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2017.