If everything falls in the right direction, Agartala City will have thousands of cyclists riding paddles in separate bicycle tracks within a few years.
With the new initiatives of the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), a new challenge has been floated for cities to promote bicycling.
The cities which would participate in the programme and get short-listed among top 11 cities following the criterions will get a sum of Rs 1 crore for developing bicycle infrastructure in the state.
According to sources, Agartala has all the potential to emerge as one of the top cities. “Here people have an appetite for bicycling but due to some safety concerns people do not really desire to ride cycles in the city. Narrow shape of roads, often congested with a huge number of vehicles, makes it difficult for the riders. But, if sufficient infrastructure is built for cyclists, the scene will be radically different”, said a highly placed source of Agartala Smart City Mission.
The first stakeholders meet for promoting this initiative among the city dwellers had been completed on Monday at Agartala. The administrative officials exchanged views with the stakeholders to make the dream come true for the city.
Agartala Bicycle mayor Gopesh Debnath, who had attended the meeting said, “We are very much aware of the situation. Making Bicycling popular in Agartala is not a tough job. If there is proper planning, people will surely come on roads with their bicycles. As of now, the concept is in pen and paper and to make it possible a very well-designed proposal has to be forwarded to the Ministry”.
On what transpired in the meeting, he said, “The meeting is about designing a proposal for participation. The government aims at creating extensive cycling networks with public transport affected due to the spread of covid-19, the union housing and urban affairs ministry on Friday invited cities to come up with a quick solution for promoting cycling”.
“The India cycles 4 change challenge and an online portal for cities to submit their proposals was launched by the Smart City mission of the Ministry .Apart from the hundred cities implementing the smart cities mission cities with population of over 5 lacs and capitals of states and union territories can apply”, he added.
