-vis the gradual withdrawal of the rickshaws from the main thoroughfares would reveal that this has so far been friendly towards the wealthier section of the society. I am not against the practicality and the reasoning behind the Government's decision but what is of concern here is that this is being done in a hurried way without any proper planning and is not having the corresponding result and the expected impact.

Firstly with the ban of rickshaw, traffic on most of the existing strip of Mirpur Road right up to the Kalabagaqn intersection has already resulted into a perennial traffic jam in all the lanes and by-lanes within the entire Dhanmondi Residential areas.

Secondly with the limited number of "filling" stations, the CNG operated four- stroke wheelers often have to wait hours before they can fill their tanks and roll on to the roads. This in turn resulted into demanding of extra charges over the fixed meter readings by the three-wheeler operators. On the other hand most Three-wheelers often "refuse" to go to short distances on one pretext or the other.

Thirdly one has to take into consideration of the fact that the proposed banning of the rickshaws from Kalabagan to Mirpur is certainly going to hurt the majority of the population living in the adjoining areas belonging to lower middle class and moderately fixed income groups whose only mode of transportation is rickshaws since there is no effective alternate public transportation systems. These people will be badly hit.

Finally to this day we have not heard a single word from the present Government about its plans if any, of helping the rickshawpullers with alternate means of income generation. Already the Governments moves have hit the rickshawpullers badly.

I feel that the whole thing is infested with ill- planning and short- sighted and cannot be sustained and may even fall through sooner than one can think of.