Telangana: Pedal your way on a public bike

Hyderabad: Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Mayor, Bonthu Rammohan said the civic body will soon launch a public bicycle sharing facility in the Hitec city area and would set up 10 such stations at various places in the city gradually. Participating in the one-year completion celebrations of the ‘Car Free Thursday’ initiative launched in Hyderabad by the IT community to encourage IT/ITeS sector employees to use public transport, carpools, cycles and walk to work, the Mayor said a pilot project of providing bi-cycles-sharing facility would be launched in Hitec city soon. “Such a facility is already there in about 500 cities in the world,” he said.

The Mayor also released a document titled Way Forward on the initiative and unveiled a poster to mark the first anniversary of Car Free Thursday. Certificates of appreciation were handed over to all those who partnered in this initiative. In the Way Forward document, it has been suggested that the use of private cars can be reduced by raising the parking fee weekly once or twice and reducing the parking space norm for offices and establishments.

He appealed to the Hyderabad Software Engineers Association and other partners of Car Free Thursday to come out with novel methods to popularise the initiative. He appreciated all the stakeholders for their efforts. A hawker zones will be created to restore space for pedestrians. “We will restore public footpaths in the city,’’ he said, adding that the GHMC will come out with walking tracks.