These rickshaw pullers were sitting outside the Sir Sturat Hogg Market on Lindsay Street in Kolkata. According to the statistics, there are 6500 registered, and a few more thousands unregistered, hand-pulled rickshaws on the streets of Kolkata.
In 2006 the Government of West Bengal proposed a ban on the hand-pulled rickshaw; the authorities had decided the sight of barefoot humans pulling other humans around the city was bad for Kolkata’s image. Their union went to the High Court to oppose the ban and now this case is pending before the court of law since August 2006. All of them are contributing from their earnings to fight against the ban.