Motorised rickshaws and vans will not be allowed to operate in Bangladesh from Monday, a move the government says will strengthen discipline in the transport sector and curb road accidents.
“The decision will be enforced from Monday,” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters on Sunday at the secretariat after a meeting of task force on road transport.
He described the battery-run rickshaws and vans as “unsafe mode of transportation”.
In 2015, the government banned three-wheeler and non-motorised vehicles from the highways. Experts have identified the presence of unregistered vehicles, including three wheelers and slow-moving ones, on the highways as one of the reasons of road accidents.
In 2017, the High Court banned operation of improvised motorised three-wheelers on highways to curb the number of road accidents.
The government formed a committee to strengthen discipline in the transport sector and cut down road crashes. The body has made 111 recommendations, Minister Asaduzzaman said.
He said that some of the recommendations of the committee have already been implemented.
“We have decided how we’ll implement rest of the recommendations,” he said.
Road crashes claimed 6,686 lives in Bangladesh last year, according to Jatri Kalyan Samity, the passengers’ welfare association.
