This year the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Mumbai as the fifth most polluted megacity in the world in terms of PM 10 (coarse pollution particles) levels. While numerous initiatives and programmes have been put into motion in efforts to reduce these ever-growing levels of pollution, you can do your bit for your city by signing up for this bike sharing program that launched this Independence Day. Kisanrao Gopale set up this bike sharing service from Ghatkopar at Rs.5 per journey and spoke to PTI about the same. ‘The Corporation has given space for the cycling depots at five different places witnessing large footfalls on an experimental basis. People will have to pay Rs.5 per journey, which is less than bus transport and also the ‘share rickshaws’ unique to the city. “This is a small experiment where we are starting with 20 bicycles which will be operating across five dedicated depots,” Kisanrao Gopale, the man behind the project supported by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), told PTI.

The report also states that apart from a largely unused cycle track in Bandra Kurla Complex, a fast emerging business district which the state wants to convert as a notified international finance centre, there is little cycling infrastructure in the city, according to Gopale.
Currently this bike sharing platform has not been given a name, but in the past we’ve had similar initiatives like ‘Cycle Chalao,’ a program started in 2011 by two university students in Mumbai, which ended up shutting shop just a few years after its launch. In a blog post announcing their closure they stated, “The conclusion of our entire research, piloting, advocacy and working with government contracts is that the bicycle sharing systems to be successful in India have to be fully sponsored by the public authorities wherein the private corporations shall act as contractors to provide construction, operations and maintenance alone.”

The benefits of cycling include fitness, low pollution, decongestion on roads and avoidance of traffic snarls, among others quite a long list of others, and we hope this bike sharing initiative is not the one that bites the dust.