The Battery-Driven Rickshaw Owners’ and Drivers’ Federation on Sunday staged two hours of road blockade at the City Gate point on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway in front of the Chittagong Mayor’s residence demanding issuance of licenses for battery-driven rickshaws.
They started the blockade at about 11:30am and withdrew it at 1:30pm after assurances by Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) Mayor Alhaj M Manjurul Alam and the Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP).
The Acting Commissioner of CMP will hold a meeting with the drivers and owners of the battery-driven rickshaws on Monday while the CCC Mayor has agreed to send three representatives in the meeting to advocate for the agitators.
Following the blockade on the highway, a several kilometers long severe traffic jam was created.
Earlier, a joint meeting in participation of the CCC, BRTA, Chittagong District Administration and CMP was held at CMP Headquarters on August 25 that took a decision to withdraw the movement of the vehicles from the city streets with effect from August 30.
The meeting had asked the owners of the battery-driven rickshaws to remove battery from their vehicles by August 29 after which the administration would conduct a joint operation to seize the battery-driven rickshaws if and whenever found on the city streets.
According to the owners, more than 70,000 battery-driven rickshaws are moving on the port city streets while the CMP traffic department said the numbers would be close to 1,50,000.
Protesting the decision, the owners and the drivers of the battery-driven rickshaws have started observing different protest programmes since September 1.
The Federation had placed a seven-point demand to the CCC Mayor. They also threatened to go on tougher movement demanding his resignation.
