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Mixed experienceA rickshaw garage owner in Mirpur, Dhaka, in a Prothom Alo report · Started in 2016

From repair hand to garage owner, and 1,000 taka a month per rickshaw for a token

A battery rickshaw returns 300 taka a day in rent against 100 for a pedal one, which is why a repair hand opened his own garage - but each rickshaw needs a 1,000-taka monthly token to run at all.

This man in Baunia Bad, Mirpur, worked as a rickshaw repair hand before opening his own garage in D Block around 2016, having seen how much more a battery rickshaw earns. By his reckoning a battery rickshaw brings 300 taka a day in rent against 100 taka for a pedal rickshaw, and the electricity for charging costs little enough that most of the difference is profit. Another operator in the same area holds 60 rickshaws on 10 kathas of land, 20 of them battery-powered, and charges 20 taka to charge an outside rickshaw. But a 2014 High Court order keeps these rickshaws off the main roads, and each one needs a 1,000-taka monthly token to run, a token trade run by local strongmen. At least 70 garages have grown up in Baunia Bad alone on occupied roadside and vacant land, and the area holds more than 1,500 battery rickshaws. The income is better than repair work, but the whole capital now sits on a business with no legal standing.

Lessons

  1. 1.Going from repair hand to garage owner means renting out assets instead of selling skill: more income, but more capital at risk
  2. 2.An unlicensed business pays a permanent slice of profit as token money, and one enforcement drive puts the whole capital at risk

Published with the person's permission, without revealing who they are.

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