The runner . Hand-pulled rickshaws will soon be replaced with batter-operated modern vehicles from the streets of Kolkata as the Government of West Bengal is up with a rehabilitation plan for 6,000 rickshaw pullers, and activists as well as social critics have been calling for the ban of these rickshaws. Like tea, tram, cricket and Gothic architecture, the hand-pulled rickshaw is a British heritage in Kolkata’s colonial treasure. These light-weight, wooden rickshaws pulled by men of thin & sturdy body frame, wrapped in lungi from the waistline till knee joint, through waterlogged lanes and crowded marketplaces are unique to Kolkata’s identity in contrast to the city’s modern infrastructure with skyscrapers and flyovers.