Tuesday, August 16, 2005

City of Joy takes down Rikshwala

The Communist government in West Bengal, has decided to do away with hand-pulled rickshaws.

Interestingly enough, the reasons given for the changes were...

The Chief Minister said he was keen to go through with this because it was a blot on the image of Kolkata.

‘‘For most westerners, Kolkata is synonymous with hand-pulled rickshaws, beggars etc. We will have to change the image,’’ he said.

Of course, no concrete plan has been put forward to explain what will happen to the people who depend on this for their livelihood. Some random mumblings of "maybe replace with cycle rikshaws"....which brings forth another argument : if pulling rikshaws is inhumane, then pedalling is not ?

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