A mobile court started drive against the unlicensed and license-expired rickshaws plying illegally in the port-city.
Executive Magistrate Afia Akhtar and Special Magistrate Jahanara Ferdous jointly led the mobile court on Thursday in New Market square under Kotwali police station.
They seized and confiscated scores of rickshaws, plying without Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) license and whose license was not renewed, said a statement of CCC.
Over 200,000 non-motorised rickshaws are plying illegally in the port-city for several years, whereas 53,774 are plying with valid documents, the CCC officials said.
The local rickshaw-pullers are paying no heed to the repeated reminders of CCC to take license for the illegal vehicles and renew license of the previously-legal ones through respective ward councillors.
The 0.2 million illegal rickshaws are plying the city streets with 'license' of different associations of rickshaw drivers and owners.
The association leaders control and protect the vehicles as well as receive a percentage of the daily and monthly earnings of the rickshaw-pullers.
Thus, they act as lobbyists in connection with local field-level policemen, the officials added.
The officials of Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP), however, said the pedalled rickshaws are beyond the jurisdiction of the CMP traffic rules.
CCC Mayor A J M Nasir Uddin repeatedly expressed concern over the illegal plying of over 0.2 million pedalled rickshaws, ignoring the calls to get those licensed from the city corporation.
In a general meeting with the CCC ward councillors and senior officials concerned on July 23, he said the number of rickshaws has increased abnormally against the port-city's road capacity.
"The number of these non-motorised vehicles should be curtailed to 0.1 million. They are causing severe traffic congestion on the city roads because of their slow-movement."
