Editorial
Rehabilitating rickshaw-pullers
A much awaited initiative
It definitely is heartening to learn that initiatives are being taken to rehabilitate hundreds of rickshaw-pullers of Dhaka city whose livelihood was dealt a severe blow in the wake of recent rickshaw bans on the main streets of the capital. Gradual pulling off of rickshaws is one of the many steps recently taken by the authorities to ease the unimaginable traffic jams. Naturally, like many others, we were also worried about the future of those rickshaw-pullers and their families since there was no visible steps for their rehabilitation. In fact the very need to rehabilitate them appeared to have been a much less important issue. It was obscured by the more obvious need of the time -- easing traffic jam which received paramount significance putting the plights of the rickshaw-pullers on the back burner. The thought of providing them with either alternative employment or safety-net to cushion off the effect of sudden joblessness did not seem to bother the authorities much. Therefore the news of rehabilitation efforts with help of World Bank under the Dhaka Urban Transport Project turned out to be most assuring. It's been reported that the project will emphasise on alternative employment, proper trainings and income generating activities for the rickshaw-pullers so that they do not end up being involved in anti-social activities. Thanks to lack of employment there is potential risk of them taking to crimes and delinquency. Besides, most of them are paupers, destitues, have a sizable family to feed and came to Dhaka in the first place after losing all they had either to river erosion or floods. Therefore, we hope the project will be implemented as soon as possible so that these helpless people can look forward to a brighter future.
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