Battery-run three-wheelers have been granted permission to ply certain roads in capital Dhaka. They are now allowed to operate on lanes, but not on main roads in the city. Extensive protests by the drivers and owners of the vehicles amid the police crackdown on the three-wheelers in the capital have earned them the permission. The prime minister herself had to interfere in the matter to calm the protesters who had threatened to launch countrywide protests to press for the legalisation of electric rickshaws.
Whether electricity-chrged rickshaws, popularly known as easy bikes in Bangladesh, should be allowed to operate in the country has been a much-debated issue since they started coming to Bangladesh in the mid-2000s. Initially, policymakers were resolutely against the vehicles, complaining that they consumed a huge amount of electricity at that juncture of power scarcity and that they were accident-prone. There was a concern from an environmental point of view too --- the disposal of batteries. The authorities did not issue them any licence or permission to ply. Nevertheless, the import of those rickshaws and their parts and their plying never stopped with the vehicles becoming the main mode of transport for short-distance travel in the rural and suburban areas, replacing human-pulled rickshaws.
It is obvious that battery-driven rickshaws will consume electricity. But their consuming power should no longer be a reason to keep them off the road because the power generation has improved considerably.
There is no denying the fact that battery-run rickshaws have left transport system in a mess not only in city suburbs but also in lanes within cities and posed environmental hazard requiring measures to regulate them. But the way policymakers have rejected the newer mode of transport will make anyone understand that they have a prejudice against the vehicles and are not properly taking into consideration the merits those have and the way they are treated globally.
Compared to the human-hauled vehicles, these rickshaws have made travel cheaper and less time-consuming for passengers and less laborious for drivers. Policymakers and the people who ride in their own vehicles might not understand the contribution of such rickshaws to easing the lives of low-income people, but those who use them feel it.
The vehicles save huge work hours of both passengers and drivers. Those have also spared pullers enormous physical labour. No one can drive a human-hauled rickshaw two shifts a day, but in the case of electric rickshaws, they can work two shifts, earning a greater amount of money.
Despite the benefits, electric rickshaws should no longer be allowed to operate without proper regulations across the country. It is already late to bring them under regulation and licensing. Now there should be a clear guideline detailing which authority will give them licences and where they can ply and where cannot. Battery disposal should also come under tight regulations. Now anyone can dispose of the battery anywhere, contributing to environmental hazards. A battery collection and recycling chain should be in place to ensure that they do not harm the environment.
The design, speed limit and passenger capacity are also big issues which are directly linked to their vulnerability to accidents. Most of the owners now modify the design and enlarge the body to accommodate more passengers. The authority should examine and approve the design of the vehicles and determine how many passengers they can carry.
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