Editing Pulled rickshaw (section)

=====Service availability=====
Though most cities offer [[auto rickshaw]] service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata,<ref>{{cite book | title=Frommer's India | publisher=John Wiley and Sons |author1=Pippa de Bruyn |author2=Keith Bain |author3=David Allardice |author4=Shonar Joshi | date=18 February 2010 | pages=15, 57, 156 | isbn=978-0470645802 | edition=Fourth}}</ref> "the last bastion of human powered ''tana'' rickshaws".<ref name=Bindloss/>{{#tag:ref|Several major streets have been closed to rickshaw traffic since 1972, and in 1982 the city seized over 12,000 rickshaws and destroyed them.  In 1992, it was estimated that over 30,000 rickshaws were operating in the city, all but 6,000 of them illegally, lacking a license (no new licenses have been issued since 1945).  The large majority of rickshaw pullers rent their rickshaws for a few dollars per shift.  They live cheaply in hostels, trying to save money to send home. (Eide, 1993) Each ''dera'', a mixture of a garage, repair shop, and dormitory, has a ''sardar'' that manages it. Pullers often pay around 100 [[Indian rupee|rupees]] (around $2.50 United States dollars) per month to live in a ''dera''.<ref name="Trillin101to104">{{cite magazine |last=Trillin |first=Calvin |date=April 2008 |title=Last Days of the Rickshaw |url=http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/04/kolkata-rickshaws/calvin-trillin-text |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080319154322/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/04/kolkata-rickshaws/calvin-trillin-text |url-status=dead |archive-date=19 March 2008 |magazine=[[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic]] |volume=213 |issue=4 |pages=101–104}}</ref> [[Hinduism|Hindu]] and [[Muslim]] pullers often share housing.<ref name="Trillin100">{{cite magazine |last=Trillin |first=Calvin |date=April 2008 |title=Last Days of the Rickshaw |url=http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/04/kolkata-rickshaws/calvin-trillin-text |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080319154322/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/04/kolkata-rickshaws/calvin-trillin-text |url-status=dead |archive-date=19 March 2008 |magazine=[[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic]] |volume=213 |issue=4 |page=100}}</ref> Some pullers sleep in the streets in their rickshaws.

As of 2008, many of the Kolkata rickshaw pullers originate from [[Bihar]], considered to be one of the poorest states in India.<ref name="Trillin100"/><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Trillin |first=Calvin |date=April 2008 |title=Last Days of the Rickshaw |url=http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/04/kolkata-rickshaws/calvin-trillin-text |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080319154322/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/04/kolkata-rickshaws/calvin-trillin-text |url-status=dead |archive-date=19 March 2008 |magazine=[[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic]] |volume=213 |issue=4 |page=96}}</ref>|group="nb"}} According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hyrapiet  |first1=Shireen |last2=Greiner |first2=Alyson L. |date=October 2012 |title=Calcutta's Hand–Pulled Rickshaws: Cultural Politics and Place Making in a Globalizing City |journal=Geographical Review |volume=102 |issue=4 |pages=407–426 |doi=10.1111/j.1931-0846.2012.00167.x|s2cid=143034771 }}</ref> the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short-distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children.{{#tag:ref|Trillin added that pullers told him that children enrolled in schools were the "steadiest" customers. Many middle-class families contract with rickshaw pullers to transport their children; a rickshaw puller who transports children becomes a "family retainer".<ref name="Trillin100"/>|group="nb"}} It is also used as a "24-hour ambulance service."<ref name="Trillin100"/> Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans providing critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.

Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.<ref name=Bindloss/> When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.<ref name="Trillin101">{{cite magazine |last=Trillin |first=Calvin |date=April 2008 |title=Last Days of the Rickshaw |url=http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/04/kolkata-rickshaws/calvin-trillin-text |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080319154322/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/04/kolkata-rickshaws/calvin-trillin-text |url-status=dead |archive-date=19 March 2008 |magazine=[[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic]] |volume=213 |issue=4 |page=101}}</ref>{{#tag:ref|A Kolkata writer told Trillin, "When it rains, even the governor takes rickshaws."<ref name="Trillin101" />|group="nb"}}

The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.<ref name=Bindloss>{{cite book | title=India | publisher=Lonely Planet | author=Joe Bindloss | year=2009 | pages=135 | isbn=978-1741793192 | edition=2 }}</ref> [[Rudrangshu Mukerjee]], an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like being carried about in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood".{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}

Motor vehicles are banned in the [[Eco-Sensitive Zone|Eco-sensitive zone]] area of [[Matheran]], [[India]], a tourist hill station near [[Mumbai]] so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.<ref>{{cite news|author1=Admin|title=Matheran: Smallest, peaceful & vehicle-free hill station|url=http://www.indiapost.com/matheran-smallest-peaceful-vehicle-free-hill-station/|work=India Post}}</ref>