The World Bank (WB) will provide 17. 25 million U.S. dollars for rehabilitation of rickshaw pullers in Bangladesh who are being adversely affected by the ban imposed along 9 km of the city roads.

The project titled Microfinance II, that will be implemented through Palli Karma Sangstan Foundation (PKSF), has been taken up after a study identified that 9,000 rickshaw pullers are being adversely affected following a ban on the movement of non- motorized transports in some major city streets, local daily The Financial Express reported Sunday.

The study found that net monthly income of the rickshaw pullers decreased by about 32 percent in those particular roads.

It also found that 98.8 percent of the pullers expressed an interest to leave the non-motorized transport profession if an alternative was available and 91.4 percent were of the opinion that micro credit is necessary to change occupations.

The results of the study encouraged the multilateral donor agency to initiate the project, as social assistance program would be the positive response to the negative outcome of the ban.

The objective of the program is to diversify microcredit operation to reach the urban poor and providing technical assistance for building sustainable institutional capacity in PKSF and its partner organizations.

Movement of non-motorized transports were off limit in many city streets since 2002 for improvement of the traffic management.

The government had plans to impose ban on the movement of non- motorized transports in other major streets. But it did not do so due to price hike of petroleum products in the international market.

Experts suggest that non-motorized transports contribute in saving consumption of fuel oil substantially.

Source: Xinhua