Bicycle rickshaws have been a feature of the Delhi streets since Indian independence in 1947, providing the cheapest, if not always the safest, way around the congested capital.

Today, even on the new motorways and flyovers, it is common to see a rickshaw-wallah pedalling slowly and steadily between speeding cars, buses and lorries for as little as five rupees (6p) a ride.

But city authorities, who have already banned street food, cows and monkeys, now plan to push 400,000 rickshaw-wallahs off the road in their latest attempt to modernise the capital. And they want the 100,000 remaining ones to pass a driving test and a medical check before they are given a new “smart” licence, fitted with a microchip to store personal details.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi, which governs the city, also proposes restricting cycle rickshaws to designated areas and banning recent immigrants from other parts of India from driving them.

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Vijender Gupta, chairman of the MCD standing committee, announced this week that he planned to set up 12 training and testing centres for rickshaw-wallahs. “These steps are being taken to make our roads safer. We will train them and test them at these sites,” he said. “The person should be residing in the city for at least one year to ensure that he is aware of traffic rules in the capital.”

The proposals follow a series of recent measures that are designed to spruce up the city before it hosts the Commonwealth Games in 2010. Local authorities are also cracking down on begging — long banned but tolerated — as part of the drive to turn Delhi into a “world-class” city commensurate with India’s status as an emerging economic giant.

The MCD maintains that the new rules will make bicycle rickshaws safer for their drivers and their passengers and ease congestion on streets that are being filled by almost 1,000 new cars every day.

But rickshaw-wallahs accuse them of cutting off their only source of income to score political points with the middle classes. Topesh Mandal, 30, told The Times that he had been working as a cycle rickshaw-wallah since he came to Delhi from his village in the eastern state of Bihar two months ago. Like many rickshaw-wallahs, he had previously worked as a farm labourer, earning 50 rupees a day, but left the countryside because there was no more work.

He now earns 200 rupees a day, 25 rupees of which he pays in daily rent for the rickshaw and 80 rupees of which goes on food and accommodation. He also pays regular fines of 400 rupees to police who impound his rickshaw, often for bogus offences. With the rest he supports his wife, two children and ageing mother in Bihar.

“We’re very worried about the future,” he said. “The traffic police already harass us so much and try to impound our rickshaws.” As for the driving test, he said that he did not need one, although Vijay Mandal, a fellow rickshaw-wallah from Bihar, admitted that he had been hit by cars three times in the past three months.

Other critics accused city authorities of trying to destroy Delhi’s only environmentally friendly and universally affordable form of transport, which is also an integral part of the city’s heritage.

Handpulled rickshaws were introduced to Delhi by the British in the 1930s, but were deemed inhumane by the new Indian Government in 1947 and replaced by bicycle rickshaws.

The Government initially issued only 500 licences, then raised that number to 99,000 in 1998. But it has issued only 74,000 licences, making 85 per cent of cycle rickshaws illegal.

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