My name is Shiunarayan Sharma and I am in my mid fifties and suddenly, at this age, I am faced with having to start looking for new work after years of doing the only thing I know - pulling a traditional rickshaw.

The West Bengal Assembly has passed the Calcutta Hackney Carriage (amendment) Bill, 2006, under which all hand-pulled rickshaws will be gradually taken off the streets of Calcutta.

I don’t know what job I will be offered by the government as part of the rehabilitation package and more importantly whether I will be able to do it properly. At my age it is hard to start anew.

Every day I wake up at 5 am. I take a bath at the corporation tap and then pray to Lord Hanuman – the God I worship. After my prayers I have a meagre breakfast of gram flour and jaggery and I am ready for a whole day of pulling rickshaws in and around the city of Calcutta.

I am illiterate and my family was very poor. I come from a tiny village in the Bihar and I had to look after my parents and my own family. In a village it is not possible to earn a lot of money, I worked long hours in someone else’s field and was given only 3 kgs of rice, but no money.

We ate the least we could and saved a little rice every day to sell. With the money we bought vegetables and other necessary articles.

If I'd continued that way then my children would have also grown up to be illiterate like me. So, I decided to come to Calcutta and work as a rickshaw puller as I did not know any other trade. It is hard work no doubt, but at least it keeps my family going. It has helped me to put my children in school.

When I came to Calcutta I was a young man of 25. I left behind in my village, my parents and my wife. Today I am 55-years-old and the father of three daughters and four sons. My work as a rickshaw puller has enabled me to look after my family well.

I send Rs 2500(around $60) every month to my family. Although it might sound a paltry sum, this money has enabled a better manner of living for my family and education for my children. I have been able to marry off my two daughters with proper dowry settlements while my other children are in school.

I have been in Calcutta all my life. I cannot go back and engage myself in farming. I do not even have my own land to till. I will have to work for someone else and get paid in kind.

I have been pulling rickshaws for the last 30 years. I do not know how to do anything else. If the government provides us with alternative employment, will I be able to perform properly?

I can’t carry heavy loads or work in a factory. Neither am I literate to do a white collar job. I am 55-years-old now. How long does a man live? It is very hard to learn a new trade now.

My youngest daughter is just five-years-old. How will I marry her off? If I go back to Bihar, I will have to go back to farming for my livelihood. I can’t marry my daughter with vegetables as dowry can I? In Bihar the minimum amount of dowry that I am expected to pay is Rs 20,000. How will I arrange for that?

I am not alone in my grief - 12,000 others are with me. The government decision to take rickshaws off the streets of Calcutta has thrown us all into turmoil.

I have already warned my family of the impending poverty that faces us. Despite all the fight that I am putting up with my fellow rickshaw pullers, I am not hopeful about the future. There is nothing that we can do or say. Our lives are at the mercy of the government and God now.

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Shiunarayan Sharma told his story to Sweeble correspondent Nilanjana Bhattacharya.

The ban on hand-pulled rickshaws in Calcutta came into force in 2006 with a promise from West Bengal's Chief Minister that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated into other jobs. However, that has not yet happenedand no date has been set for the process to begin.