Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Bhopal Smart City is flooded with requests for passes of bicycles. Bhopal Smart City Development Corporation Limited (BSCDCL) has received nearly 50,000 calls for passes this month. One of the reasons is the health benefits attached with cycling.
The Smart City has developed tracks for a public bike sharing (PBS) scheme, but these tracks have been lying useless since 2017. Now, after the corona curfew, the number of bicycle enthusiasts has risen considerably. The calls received by the BSCDCL were related to queries about monthly rentals and rebates on availing of the facility.
BSCDCL has also cleared the bicycle tracks at Hoshangabad road and they claim the number of users is likely to rise. As of now, there are 1.7 lakh registered users with BSCDCL, but only 500 people use these bicycles each day. The ratio is likely to improve now as people are considering bicycling as a way of staying healthy.
BSCDCL has also placed orders for 1,000 new e-bikes and bicycles and these will be added to the service next month. These 500 bicycles are available at Rs 149 a month and users can park the bicycles around 100 locations in Bhopal.
BSCDCL manager Nitin Dave claims that potential users are asking for details about the facility more than ever. “We’ve received over 50,000 queries for it only this month,” he says.
