Bicycles sharing system in Warangal soon
Warangal: The Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation(GWMC) is mulling over promoting bicycles use to reduce environmental pollution as part of Smart City initiative by introducing Public Bike Sharing (PBS) system in the city.
The authorities are intending to adopt a two-pronged approach in promoting cycling. Plans are being drawn to take up a pilot project soon with an objective of highlighting importance of cycling and benefits it offers to the riders, besides addressing vehicular pollution.
As part of the project, GWMC decided to partner with Hyderabad Bicycling Club (HBC), affiliated to All India Bicycling Federation. The Municipal Commissioner V P Gautham held meeting with the representatives of the HBC to discuss the modalities of the project.
It is decided to set up two Bike (bicycle) Stations initially at historic Bhadrakali Temple and National Institute of Technology Warangal (NITW). Bicycles of different varieties will be made available on hire basis, at the Bike Stations, informed the HBC Chief Manager S Vijaya Bhasker Reddy.
Speaking to The Hans India on Friday he said another round of discussions with the GWMC officials will take place possibly within a week or ten days. Meanwhile the HBC authorities will chalk out a detailed plan on how to go about the project.
Later, the GWMC and the HBC will enter into a memorandum of understanding to execute the project. A decision on how many bikes have to be stationed at Bike Station and the cost of hiring the bicycles on hourly and daily basis will be decided later.
Different kinds of bicycles like touring bikes, road bikes, mountain bikes, hybrid bikes, specialty bikes kids’ bikes, women's bikes and others will be made available to suit the individual needs of the riders.
After setting up the Bike Stations, the local youth will be engaged in maintaining them after providing them full-fledged training. Thus, the project will also help to ensure employment to unemployed youth, Bhaskar Reddy explained.
The bikes can be hired for going colleges and offices, and for going on an outing with friends of family during weekends. “Like jogging and running cycling offers great benefits in keeping oneself physically fit, in addition, to reduce vehicular pollution, which is troubling metros like Bengaluru”, he said.
He informed that United Nations Human Settlements Programme agreed to associate for PBS system with the HBC, which organises regular rides on Saturday and Sunday in the State capital. We are currently working on PBS projects in Chennai, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Delhi, Amaravati (Vijayawada), he added.