79,616 licensed rickshaws ply city roads

As many as 79,616 City Corporation license holding rickshaws ply on different roads of the city whereas a good number of rickshaws without authorization also run on the roads.
There is mushroom growth of rickshaw garages in the city's suburban areas where a good number of rickshaws are kept and are being illegally manufactured. Buying all types of machinery needed for making rickshaw and arranging carpenters, owners of rickshaw have been manufacturing rickshaws since long and push these on roads without authorization. Generally they purchase parts from Tejgaon and Gulistan markets where all parts for rickshaw are available. Besides, they arrange rickshaw pullers on conditions that rickshaw pullers pay Tk 80 to owners per day and some advance money is also paid to rickshaw pullers to paddle rickshaws for at least one year. However, every day a rickshaw puller earns about Tk 300-350.
Mamotaz Uddin, owner of a rickshaw garage at Khilgaon, said he has about sixty rickshaws and all the rickshaws were made in his garage. He had to spend about Tk 14,000 to 20,000 for manufacturing and registration each rickshaw. Nevertheless he never went to Dhaka City Corporation bhaban (DCC) for taking registration of rickshaws as all the registration numbers were managed by brokers in exchange for money. Expressing grave concern, he said that every year at least 2-3 rickshaws were stolen. Despite forming "rickshaw thief preventing committee", it is not being possible to prevent stealing.
"We are poor people running rickshaws on the roads to earn our livelihood. It is very painful that we have to be victim of theft and snatchers on the way. If a rickshaw is stolen once we don't have capability to manage another," said a rickshaw puller.
Talking to this correspondent, an officer of wheel tax department of DCC said that to capture illegal rickshaws, DCC has taken actions and the actions continue. Besides, DCC cancels registration of those rickshaw owners who fail to renew registration every year.