Hyderabad: Since ages, cycling has always been added on the list of the ‘Fitness Sports’. Good news for the city is that, an entire side of the 3-km-long Necklace Road in Hyderabad will soon be dedicated for cycling and pedestrian activities daily from 5 to 7 am.

This has come as a boon to morning walkers and cyclists, who have been long waiting for something like that to happen. Motorized vehicles will be banned on the stretch for the two hours and the Traffic police, too, has given its green signal to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and Hyderabad Bicycling Club (HBC) which are jointly promoting the environment friendly, clean, green and healthy Hyderabad concept.

Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy is to inaugurate the pilot project “BiCyclone” on Necklace Road on March 18 and T-town stars including Venkatesh and Sumanth along with government officials and industrialists have confirmed that they will be there.

Sources mentioned that the efforts were on to rope in some heroines too. Cycling tracks will also be set up in other parts of the city as a run up to the Conference of Parties (COP-11) or the International Biodiversity Conference to be hosted here in October.

Over 1,000 bicycles are being bought for the inaugural event and participants will cycle around the lake covering Necklace Road, Sanjeevaiah Park and NTR Marg. The best part of the project is that from March 19, 100 bicycles and helmets will be kept at Necklace Road and one can simply drive there and pick up a bicycle. Till March 31, there will be no fees for the cycles and a nominal amount of around `100 per month will be charged after that for the maintenance etc.

Other possible locations for bicycle tracks in city are around Kasu Brahmananda Reddy Park, through defence areas in Cantonment. The number of bicycles will be increased based on the response from the citizens. In future, bicycle sheds and tracks would be set up from every Metro Rail Station to the interior residential areas.

By Indian Sports News