Battery-run Rickshaw Is Not the Problem, Our Unpreparedness Is

There is a particular practice in our country to discover problems only after they become too severe to ignore. The havoc centring battery-powered rickshaw is the latest example. For years, these vehicles have multiplied quietly across cities, towns and villages, filling a gap left by an inadequate public transport system. Now, they are being blamed for traffic congestion, road accidents, electricity pressure and even revenue losses. The criticism is not entirely misplaced. But if the government treats battery-run rickshaws merely as an unwanted nuisance to be removed from the streets right away, it will again amount to treating the symptom while ignoring the root cause of the disease.
The real problem is not that countless people are now using electric three-wheelers. The real problem is that millions of vehicles have been allowed to emerge without a coherent policy governing their production, registration, routes, energy consumption, safety and environmental impact. Bangladesh has effectively allowed a vast transport system to develop without formally admitting that it exists.
The scale of the informal system is astonishing. The Bangladesh Power Development Board estimates that there are around 4.5 to 5 million battery-powered rickshaws and easy bikes are plying the roads across the country. The Centre for Policy Dialogue puts the number of e-three-wheelers at approximately 6 million, with around 2 million operating in Dhaka alone. 
The same problem exists with conventional rickshaws. More than 220,000 pedal rickshaws are registered with Dhaka’s two city corporations, while industry stakeholders estimate that roughly 1 million operate outside formal city corporation registration. Battery-powered three-wheelers do not fit neatly into the existing legal framework, leaving a large part of the country’s urban and semi-urban transport economy in administrative limbo.
This is where the debate needs to change. Instead of asking whether Bangladesh should ban battery rickshaws, we should ponder upon why the state allowed a transport industry of this magnitude to develop outside the formal transport system in the first place.
Well, the answer is partly economic. Battery rickshaws are cheap, flexible and accessible. They provide employment to a huge number of drivers and mechanics while offering affordable transportation to millions of passengers. They are particularly important for short-distance and last-mile travel, where conventional buses are often inconvenient or simply unavailable. In many towns and rural areas, an easy bike is not a luxury. It is a viable transport system.
However, that, of course, does not make this transport system acceptable. A vehicle that can suddenly turn across a major road, stop anywhere to pick up passengers, operate without adequate driver training or use an improvised charging point creates obvious risks. When buses, private cars, motorcycles, rickshaws and battery-powered three-wheelers compete for the same road space without integrated route planning, congestion becomes inevitable. But congestion is ultimately a planning failure, and not merely a problem for which this particular vehicle can solely be blamed. 
However, the electricity issue makes the matter even more complicated. BPDB expects electricity demand to fall by roughly 1,000 to 1,500 megawatts after the nighttime peak. Yet, the anticipated decline is not occurring. Officials believe battery charging is a significant reason. CPD estimates that e-three-wheelers consume roughly 5 per cent of the country’s total electricity generation, equivalent to around 750 megawatts. If that estimate is broadly correct, Bangladesh has effectively created a major electricity-consuming sector without developing a corresponding energy policy for it.
The problem becomes even more serious when charging takes place through illegal connections. It also means the state loses revenue while electricity theft becomes widespread.
The proposed response is encouraging, but it will succeed only if it moves beyond another administrative exercise. Plans to register vehicles, restrict them to designated routes, introduce GPS, establish geofencing, control manufacturing and keep them away from major roads are sensible. The proposed eight-zone system for Dhaka could also help create a more organised network. Standardised vehicle designs and mandatory licensing, fitness testing and driver training are equally necessary.
The country now has a choice. It can continue conducting occasional drives, confiscating vehicles and blaming drivers, while the numbers grow again the following morning. Or it can recognise the reality that has already emerged and build a regulatory system around it. A transport system involving five or six million vehicles cannot remain invisible. Nor can an electricity-consuming sector of potentially hundreds of megawatts remain outside energy planning. Bangladesh does not necessarily need fewer battery rickshaws. It needs fewer unregulated battery rickshaws.
The government’s temptation will be to make the battery rickshaw the villain. That would be politically convenient but intellectually lazy. These vehicles did not appear because Bangladesh suddenly developed an irrational affection for three-wheelers. They appeared because millions of commuters needed cheap transport, millions of workers needed employment and the formal public transport system failed to meet the demand. The distinction matters, because the objective should not be to eliminate a transport system that millions depend on. The objective should be to transform an informal transport economy into a safe, registered, energy-conscious and financially accountable part of the national transport system.
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The writer teaches at IUBAT. 
He can be reached at 
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