Mohammad Siddique wears a worrisome look as he stands next to a rickshaw parked at the Lytton Road to participate in the day-long strike called by the Auto Rickshaw Drivers and Dealers Association to protest against the Punjab government’s decision to replace two-stroke rickshaws with four-stroke ones.

“If the Punjab government doesn’t change its decision I don’t know how I’ll support my family,” says Siddique, driver of a two-stroke rickshaw.

Taking part in the strike to show solidarity with the rest of the rickshaw owners and drivers is surpassed by his concern for the future of running a large household. Besides taking care of a wife and an ailing mother and five children, he has to marry his younger sister by December, a time he most dreads which coincides with the government deadline given for the final conversion of all rickshaws into four-stroke.

In 2005, under the Punjab chief minister, Pervez Elahi’s Green Punjab Scheme, the local government decided to replace the two-stroke rickshaws with CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) fitted four-stroke ones in Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Gujranwala by December 2007. The initiative taken seemingly to reduce pollution in the province was challenged by the rickshaw union in the Lahore High Court, which has yet to reach a decision.

On May 8, 2007, a division bench of the LHC sent a petition filed by the president of the rickshaw union, Mr Rahman Khan, and its secretary-general to the LHC chief justice. “Our petition has questioned the right of the City government to ban two-stroke rickshaws which amounts to denying the rickshaw owners the right to respectable earning,” says Mr Khan.

Statistics available with the City District Government Lahore (CDGL) indicate that of a total of 60,000 two-stroke rickshaws, 20,000 operate without a route permit since the imposition of a ban imposed by the Punjab government on its manufacture, sale and registration on Dec 31, 2004. Officials at the CDGL, reinforced by the Environment Protection Department (EPD), claim the ban on the entry of two-stroke rickshaws on The Mall has seen a “reduction of 35 per cent in the pollution level.” Accusing the owners of renting out their rickshaws to drivers on a daily basis, the CDGL says the issue is botched up by them so that they can maximise profit at minimum cost.

A two-stroke rickshaw costs between Rs90,000 to Rs110,000 and a four-stroke rickshaw, manufactured at a cost of Rs70,000 is being sold for Rs210,000 on the black market instead of the fixed price of Rs138,000. “Instead of telling the rickshaw owners to get rid of their vehicles, our demand is to allow them to change the engine which will only cost Rs22,000,” says Irfan Khokhar, chairman LPG Association.

Mr Irfan, a distributor of the LPG, a fuel on which a two-stroke rickshaw runs, is likely to be adversely affected by the conversion to four-stroke engine. “The government is providing a subsidy of Rs20,000 on the purchase of every four-stroke rickshaw. But, under the scheme, the buyer is expected to make a down payment of Rs25,000 to apply for a bank loan. The total amount required to get a four-stroke comes to Rs45,000 which far exceeds Rs22,000 needed to replace the engine. From where will a poor rickshaw driver come up with such an amount? The government subsidy is not going to help them,” says Mr Irfan Khokhar.

That is Mohammad Siddque’s concern. “I’ve been driving rickshaw for the past 15 years. I don’t have the money to buy one. So, I rent it for Rs300 on a daily basis. The man who owns it says he doesn’t have Rs45,000 to get a four-stroke and will be selling his rickshaw to someone who can afford the conversion,” explains the 47-year-old rickshaw driver. “I don’t know what I’ll do because there will be so many rickshaw drivers and few rickshaws left to drive. The government is not serious about helping men like me otherwise it wouldn’t have made the down payment of Rs25, 000 for the loan mandatory.”

Faryad Ali, another rickshaw driver, mocks the Chief Minister’s Green Punjab Scheme and calls it a money minting ‘scam’ at the cost of rickshaw owners and drivers. “Why doesn’t the Punjab government put a number on motor vehicles’ ownership? Won’t the air become better if there were fewer cars, fewer factories, and fewer plazas owned by the rich?