A plan to ban hand-pulled rickshaws in Calcutta is a long overdue step to end a backbreaking, inhuman form of work, says the communist state of West Bengal.

But the announcement made on India's Independence Day, has thrown the spindly-legged, rag-clad rickshaw pullers--immortalised as a symbol of Calcutta in books such as Dominique Lapierre's City of Joy--into turmoil.

A rickshaw driver in Calcutta

"The City of Joy will become the City of Sorrow if hand-pulled rickshaws are banned," rickshaw puller Samir Sheikh said.

"My grandfather and father were rickshaw pullers, I don't know any other trade but pulling rickshaws. My family will starve if the ban is imposed," said Sheikh, a short muscular man who did not know his age.

Like the character Hajari in City of Joy, Sheikh's family and many other rickshaw pullers come from impoverished neighbouring states such as Bihar, which they abandoned to scrape a living in the bustling city of 12 million.

The rickshaw pullers, whose wiry bodies glisten with perspiration as they haul their human cargo in Calcutta's steamy heat, earn about 100 rupees (C$2.7) a day. Most sleep, eat and live on the city's crowded pavements.

Now, scores of them are crowding municipal offices "pleading with officials to reconsider the decision," said the mayor of Calcutta, Bikash Bhattacharya.

"We've stopped the annual renewal of licences and issuing fresh licences for hand-pulled rickshaws," he said.

"We've told them nobody will be prosecuted for plying their trade until the government issues a notice."

A study by the organisation Action Aid India has estimated the number of rickshaw pullers in Calcutta at 18,000, but their union says the number could be as high as 24,000.

In 1996, the state government outlawed hand-pulled rickshaws, only to back down in the face of huge protests. A year later, it offered pullers 7,000 rupees to turn in their vehicles but got no takers.

This time the government seems determined to enforce the ban, saying rickshaws introduced to Calcutta in the late 19th century by Chinese traders have long been considered inhuman.

State Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee said: "We want to replace these with three-wheeler cycle rickshaws propelled by better technology or auto-rickshaws."

No protests by the rickshaw pullers have been staged yet. Their union says it is counting on the government to make good on its promise to provide other work.

"We hope they will make alternative arrangements for their livelihood," said the general secretary of the Calcutta Rickshaw Pullers' Union, Tribeni Singh.

The government has said it will offer loans to the rickshaw pullers to buy other vehicles, but the workers fret about repayments.

"It's good to hear the government will arrange loans for us, but will it repay the loan for us The banks will fleece us until we die," said Sheikh.

Some rickshaw pullers object to government descriptions of their work as inhuman and degrading.

"We work, we do not steal. This is no indignity to me. It's a decent way of earning a living," said Mohammed Israel, who has been pulling rickshaws for 40 years. "It has given me everything--a wife, two sons in my village in Bihar."

Holding a shining round small brass bell that he swings to warn pedestrians in his way, he said: "I even hear the tinkling sound of the bell in my sleep."