Battery-run rickshaws again banned in Ctg
Saturday, 16 May 2015
Our Correspondent
CHITTAGONG, May 15: The metropolitan police slapped a ban on battery-run rickshaws in the port city from Friday morning terming it illegal.
The police held a meeting on Thursday and instructed the battery-run rickshaw owners and drivers to dismantle the batteries from the rickshaws. The police said the battery-run rickshaw drivers and owners could not produce any legal document favouring plying battery-run rickshaws.
Commuters in the port city had to suffer a lot as about 70,000 battery-run rickshaws were off the city roads suddenly as the city dwellers were left with no alternative as they were about to go to different destinations on the weekly holidays for different purposes.
Taking the advantage of the absence of battery-run rickshaws the CNG-run auto-rickshaws drivers and pedalled rickshaw pullers charged fares double the normal rates, the commuters alleged.
"The CNG-run autos are charging double rates. It is the task of Chittagong City Corporation to check if illegal rickshaws are plying in the city as the CCC issues driving licences to the vehicles. But the police are playing a cat-and-mouse game with the city dwellers, sometimes by suspending and sometimes by allowing plying of the battery-run rickshaws, although they have no authority to take any alternative measure," said a teacher who waited for a rickshaw for 15 minutes to take his ailing wife to a clinic from the city's Bakolia area in the morning.
The police banned battery-run rickshaws in the city in the middle of April after they had a meeting with the owners and the association of pedalled rickshaws but the battery-run rickshaws started plying again on the eve of the city corporation election on April 28.
A rickshaw puller said many roads in the city were rugged, uneven and not plain for which the rickshaw-pullers were finding it difficult to pedal the rickshaws with passengers.
Additional Commissioner of Chittagong Metropolitan Police Shahidur Rahman said they had asked the drivers not to ply the battery-run rickshaws in the city as they had no legal document.
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