In honor of Madhya Pradesh Foundation Day, a celebration of the merging of the central Indian state in 1956, EMBARQ India in partnership with Atal Indore City Transport Service Ltd. (AICTSL) and BSA Hercules organized a bicycle rally in Indore on November 1, 2011. AICTSL is in charge of operating the city bus service in Indore and is also working towards implementing a bicycle sharing network in the city.
More than 300 bicyclists participated in the event that began at 9:00 a.m. from the District Collector’s Office and ended at Residency Kothi after traversing a length of 4 kilometers, passing through important business centers like Palsikar, Juni Indore, Tower Square, Sapna Sangeeta Road and GPO.
The rally was lead by the District Collector Mr. Raghvendra Singh, Municipal Commissioner Mr. Yogendra Sharma and all the Joint Collectors of the District of Indore. The rally was flagged off by Mayor KM Moghe and Divisional Commissioner Prabhat Parasher.
The aim of the bicycle rally was to increase awareness about the benefits of cycling. The participation of all the top administrators of the city is an indicator of the interest in promoting non-motorized transport as a means to solve traffic problems and pollution in the city.
The bicycle rally, which was part of the week-long celebration, had another feature that added significance to the event. Every cycle carried a placard of the state’s ambitious “Beti Bachao Abhiyan” or “Save the Girl Child” campaign, an effort to restore the gender ratio in the state and fight the culture’s negative sentiment around daughters. “Beti Bachao Abhiyan” is also the theme of this year’s MP Foundation Day.
