On the streets: As business improves, bus owners welcome crackdown against ‘illegal’ rickshaws

The rickshaws are unregistered and therefore do not pay taxes.

KARACHI: Public buses owners and drivers have welcomed the decision to ban six-seat and nine-seat rickshaws in the city but the issue is garnering mixed reactions and statements.

These new types of rickshaws have affected the business of transporters who own buses, coaches and minibuses and on March 5, the city’s traffic police launched a crackdown against them. The provincial transport secretary Taha Faruqui and transport minister Mumtaz Jakhrani have also announced the ban on the rickshaws that have thronged some of the city’s main roads since 2013.

“We are already involved in a scuffle with Qingqi rickshaws and the emergence of these rickshaws has added to the problems of the bus business, which is already in decline due to the CNG crisis,” said Rab Nawaz, a transporter whose vehicles operate on the Marwat coach route. “More than half of our daily passengers have been taken by these rickshaws and they don’t pay any tax to the government,” he said, adding that they would be happy if the rickshaws are banned permanently and the traffic police implement the ban. He said that after the police campaign on Wednesday, the number of rickshaws has dropped significantly, due to which buses have been getting more passengers than usual.

The Karachi Transport Ittehad general secretary Syed Mehmood Afridi said that bus owners pay taxes to the government and provide a safe transport facility to the public. “The government has to ban these rickshaws to prevent the quality of public transport from declining further,” said Afridi. “If they don’t then we will stop our vehicles for an indefinite period.”

The other side

However, it seems that not everyone is happy with the ban. “Rickshaws are expensive but they can easily move in heavy traffic and hence consume less time in reaching their stand as compared to buses,” said Ziaur Rehman, a resident of Korangi, who prefers travelling by these rickshaws.

Rickshaw owners blame bus owners for the police crackdown and the transport department’s statements. “The government should have banned the manufacture of the six-seater and the nine-seater a long time ago. Now we have sold our properties to buy these rickshaws and our families depend on them,” said Imran Husain, a nine-seat rickshaw owner.

Another rickshaw driver at Qayyumabad Chowrangi echoed Husain’s words, highlighting their dependence on the vehicles. “The government should register our vehicles and provide us documents,” he suggested. “We are ready to pay taxes but we can’t afford to quit the business. We have no jobs, we eat if these rickshaws move and we starve if they don’t.”  The Sindh Transport Department focal person Yar Muhammad Mirjat told The Express Tribune that they have served notices to the rickshaw manufacturers to close their business, two of which are in Karachi while another is in Hyderabad. “We have served notices to the three rickshaw body-makers in the province but a majority of these rickshaws come from Punjab. The manufacturers don’t have the compulsory Provincial Transport Authority licence,” he said.

Conflicting statements

Mirjat added that, subject to the chief minister’s approval, legislation is underway to launch a crackdown against the body-makers. He said that rickshaws owners and drivers will retaliate in case of an unlegislated crackdown, which is why they are waiting for the legislation to get approved. He also claimed that they have written to the commissioner regarding the illegal manufacturers and the rickshaws.

However, Commissioner Karachi Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui, refuted the claims, saying that they have not received any letter from the transport department and instead, said that legislation is underway to regulate the rickshaws. “We will take them (the rickshaw owners) on board,” he said. “They are cooperative people and I hope that they will not prioritise money over the security of the general public.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 11^th, 2014.