Millions of poor earn their livelihood by rickshaw pulling and now their existence is threatened by ban on rickshaws on many roads. Rickshaw is the only environmentally sustainable and zero emission product of Bangladesh.

Rickshaws were probably introduced to the city of Dhaka in the early part of the previous century. Those of us who have been brought up in Dhaka have seen its existence since childhood and it has become a part and parcel of our everyday life. It is by far the most common mode of public transport used by people of all walks of life. To a certain extent, the existence of rickshaws may reflect the true nature of our socio-economic condition. Those who are involved in pulling rickshaws mostly belong to the deprived class of the society. For a large section of these people, their poverty is the direct consequence of economic mismanagement and ill distribution of wealth in our society. Some of them have lost farms and lands and others have lost their homestead devoured by river erosion.

Monga is a sort of famine that stalks the northern region during the lean period when there is no work for farmers or agricultural labourers. The jobless people lose their food purchasing capacity. "As the local economy is not enough to keep the locals in their own areas, they roam around and finally migrate to the capital as part of their coping mechanism," the Economist said. There is no official or unofficial data on how many people migrate to Dhaka each year during Monga.

Rickshaw pullers often get sick and as they get older this way of life becomes increasingly unsustainable. Their children receive only limited schooling and grow up with few occupational choices and opportunities to escape poverty.