The hand-pulled rickshaw, part of the city’s heritage, has won a breather. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Hand-pulled rickshaws are to stay, at least till the Puja 2007, despite the recent ban.

The Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) has decided not to enforce the ban — it will not approach police to impound the rickshaws — till the state transport department comes up with a rehabilitation plan for the pullers.

“I know hand-pulled rickshaws are now illegal in the city, but I will do nothing to get them withdrawn from the roads, as the state government has promised a rehabilitation package for the pullers. Let the government announce the package first,” mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya said on Tuesday.

“The CMC, however, will not issue any licence to hand-pulled rickshaws,” he added

The state government has passed the Calcutta Hackney Carriage (Amendment ) Bill, 2006, in December, banning rickshaws in the city.

As for the rehabilitation package, a deputy secretary in the transport department said: “We are yet to receive any order on the matter. If the order comes now, it will lake at least 10 months to prepare a package that will be acceptable to all.”

Leader of the Opposition in the CMC Javed Ahmed Khan threatened to launch a movement if the government does not come up with a “viable alternative for the pullers” before enforcing the ban. Leader of the Congress municipal party Pradip Ghosh echoed the threat.

A hand-pulled rickshaw costs about Rs 20,000 and a puller’s daily income does not cross Rs 150.

Though deputy mayor Kalyan Mukherjee has put the figure of the licensed rickshaws in the city at 3,800, the actual number is not less than 12,000, said an official in the CMC’s hackney carriage licence section.He pointed out that the last licence issued to a hand-pulled rickshaw was in 1945. The licences are being renewed since then.

The hand-pulled rickshaw is part of the city’s heritage. To ensure it does not get lost with the enforcement of the ban, the CMC has decided to preserve a model of the rickshaw in the Town Hall museum, said municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay.