Nagpur’s Lost Rickshaw Pullers: The Untold Story of Vanishing livelihoods

thenewsdirt
13 minutes ago
7 min read

The manual rickshaws that once filled Nagpur's roads have nearly vanished, leaving behind thousands of former pullers struggling to find alternative means of survival.

In Vidarbha's largest city, where cycle rickshaws were once a dominant transport mode, only a handful remain visible today, mostly carrying loads rather than passengers.

This dramatic disappearance has pushed an entire workforce into economic uncertainty as they navigate new realities in an urbanising economy.

The Slow Death of Manual Rickshaws

Cycle rickshaws held a significant presence in Nagpur through much of the 20th century. As early as 1959, the city had 4,809 cycle rickshaws operating on its streets.

The Maharashtra government had taken a policy decision back then to eliminate these vehicles within five years due to concerns about traffic congestion and what authorities described as the inhumane nature of the work.

By the 1970s, the state government formed a study group to abolish cycle rickshaws across Maharashtra, with the commissioner of Nagpur division serving as chairman. Traffic police proposed creating zones where manual rickshaws would face restrictions or complete bans on major thoroughfares, including Central Avenue, Wardha Road, Kamptee Road, North Ambazari Road, West High Court Road, Residency Road and Dhantoli.

The state had taken a policy decision not to grant registration to rickshaw pullers beyond 5,551 in Nagpur.

This decision was challenged in the Nagpur bench in 1998 by Pradyawant Rickshaw Chalak Sangh but was dismissed on July 4, 2001. As per a government notification from April 22, 1979, licences for cycle rickshaws would be given only if the person himself was plying it. However, nearly 10,000 vehicles were plying without proper registration.

Four years before 2007, traffic police had banned cycle rickshaws on Sitabuldi main road, though enforcement remained inconsistent.

The Motor Vehicle Act had no specific provisions for punishing rickshaw violations, making regulation extremely difficult.

Social activist Umesh Choube claimed around 50,000 rickshaws were plying on city roads in 2011, with several thousand contractors owning anywhere from five to a few hundred rickshaws each. An estimated 60,000 families depended on earnings from cycle rickshaws at that time.

Economic Survival in the Transformation

The replacement of manual rickshaws by electric alternatives fundamentally altered livelihoods.

Mohan Kewat, a rickshaw puller, easily past his 70s, struggled to mount a sack of chillies on his cycle rickshaw at Cotton Market.

He said times were good until electric rickshaws started plying on roads five years before 2020.

What he earned pulling the cycle rickshaw all these years was just enough to keep him going, and buying an e-rickshaw worth over a lakh was out of the question.

Not many pullers even owned a cycle rickshaw that cost Rs 17,000. With their paltry earnings, buying an e-rickshaw worth over a lakh was impossible. Yet many from other walks of life got employment opportunities after buying e-rickshaws. This threw cycle rickshaws out of the competition completely.

Many cycle rickshaw pullers were homeless and had no families. They slept wherever they last parked after dropping off their last customer. Almost all were pulling rented rickshaws, paying Rs 30 a day. Daily earnings ranged from Rs 50 to Rs 200. Before the e-rickshaws came, income was double. With passengers preferring e-rickshaws, cycle rickshaw pullers largely took to pulling loads instead of ferrying people.

Naresh Neware, still in his late 40s, said he had been pulling a rickshaw since he was a boy. But he had not been able to save enough to buy an e-rickshaw. He built a house with the savings. There was a time when he even dropped people off at the airport, but getting a passenger for small distances became difficult.

Krishna Makram said he could barely earn enough to get married and support a family. There were others like him, too.

The cycle rickshaws survived the onslaught of auto rickshaws and even six-seaters, but e-rickshaws simply threw them out of the competition.

Alternative Livelihoods and Displacement

A man pedals a bicycle rickshaw with a sack in Nagpur, while a green auto rickshaw with passengers and an orange roof follows, on a street in an urban setting. — Alternative Livelihoods and Displacement

The transformation forced pullers into different survival strategies. The e-rickshaw drivers encountered by reporters came from varied backgrounds.

They included a factory worker, an embroidery craftsman, a vegetable seller, a cycle mechanic and even a supplier of laboratory equipment in schools who purchased an e-rickshaw after business was hit during lockdown. A couple of them were former cycle rickshaw pullers, too.

Some cycle rickshaw pullers managed to transition. Kailash Dhamaye, who earlier pulled a cycle rickshaw, managed to buy an electric vehicle.

He got Rs 25,000 for the down payment. He had owned it for two years, finding it better than a cycle rickshaw, though he had to borrow Rs 30,000 to replace the battery.

The lockdown period accelerated this displacement. Mohammed Sultan, a rickshaw driver, and his family were thrown to the streets after three months of no work. They had been living in a rented room at Sindi Bhavan Slum near Tajbagh for Rs 1,600 a month. After three months without income, the landlord asked them to leave. Sultan had been working for 12 years but could not save much. His aged mother lived with his brother, who ran a cycle rickshaw. They were not in a position to feed Sultan's family.

The rickshaw pullers are completely unorganised. Over a decade ago, there was a union leader who is no more. This lack of organisation left pullers vulnerable to exploitation by garage owners who rented out rickshaws. Private garage owners exploited poor rickshaw pullers who were pulling cycle rickshaws through abuse and exploitation. The Bombay Public Convenience Act of 1920 had provisions that were being violated as garage proprietors plied unauthorised cycle rickshaws in the city, flouting rules and leading to traffic congestion on busy roads.

Nagpur Rickshaw Company, a firm over 70 years old making cycle rickshaws, shifted into the e-rickshaw business five years before 2020. It began as the first agency of Maxi brand e-rickshaws and later sold a different brand. There was no longer a demand for cycle rickshaws even though the product had a very long life. Rickshaw pullers pointed out that e-rickshaws take passengers fast, so hardly anyone hails a cycle rickshaw anymore.

The disappearance was nearly complete by 2018. A Marathi news report from December 2018 noted that cycle rickshaws, which once had a tremendous presence in Nagpur as the primary means of intracity transport, had come to a standstill.

The number of rickshaws, which once stood at over 20,000, had dwindled to just those that could be counted on fingers. The production of cycle rickshaws had stopped because there were no sales.

Advanced transport vehicles pushed rickshaws into obsolescence. Drivers searched for new forms of employment. In the past, if anyone wanted to go anywhere in the city, there were only two options, auto or cycle rickshaw.

Due to low cost and availability of time, the second option was naturally chosen. That was an era when human power was given more importance than horsepower. While travelling in these cycle rickshaws, if there was an uphill climb, passengers would get down and walk, sometimes even pushing the rickshaw. But no one felt any shame in it.

After reaching the desired place, looking at the sweating rickshaw driver, there were people who would voluntarily give two paise more than the fixed rate.

However, the mode of transport that connected people to people has become almost extinct today. Cabs and auto rickshaws left rickshaw drivers facing starvation.

Cycle rickshaws were considered an important means for moving around in lanes and bylanes, but e-rickshaws of the same size eliminated even that need.

The transformation from manual rickshaws to electric alternatives reshaped Nagpur's transport landscape entirely.

Former pullers, many elderly and with no other skills, found themselves marginalised by technology they could not afford.

Those who remained pulled loads rather than passengers, earning barely enough for daily survival. The homeless pullers who once slept in their rickshaws after their last customer now face an uncertain future, casualties of urban development that moved faster than their ability to adapt.