A first of its kind premier Cyclothon event was flagged off from New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium today. Organized under the dynamic leadership of, Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship,Dharmendra Pradhan, the Cyclothon attracted around 5000 participants from all walks of life including officials from various Ministries and the Oil Industry, Sports personalities, Celebrity star Farhan Akhtar, school and college children cycling professionals, amateurs and housewives. Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, himself lead the 5 km Green Ride amidst great excitement and fan-fare to create awareness for cycle.The genesis of this Cyclothon lay in Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeal to people in his monthly radio show Mann Ki Baat about avoiding the use of petrol & diesel for one day in the week to conserve fuels and contribute towards Nation building. The promotion of cycling through this event is aimed at instilling socio-environmental consciousness among citizens towards the larger aim of conserving foreign exchange on fuel imports.
Speaking on the occasion, Shri Pradhan said that benefits of cycling are not only limited to protect environment or fuel conservation but it also carries huge health and fitness dividends. He further said that judicious use of various forms of energy and its conservation is a matter of vital importance to all of us for the betterment of our society and healthy environment. He said that conservation is a collective responsibility of all of us. It will be possible only when the industries, individual citizens, organizations, Oil Companies and the Government share a collective responsibility of petroleum conservation to conserve the available resources of energy and create a cleaner environment for the future generations.Shri Pradhan appealed to all citizens to join in the movement for conserving the finite petroleum resources through practicing simple, easily implementable tips while using petroleum products in cooking, transport, agriculture and industries to extract maximum utilization and efficiency. It also helps us to save money and mitigate the adverse social, economic and environmental impacts associated with oil production and consumption which include air pollution, global warming, water pollution, dependence on import etc. Minister urged to all citizens to come together and work for building a nation that is green, environmentally clean and pollution free.
Based on the distance to be covered, the Cyclothon featured four categories – Elite (Men – 45 km/women-27 km), Amateur (27 km), Open and the popular Green Ride. While the Elite and Amateur categories were for serious cyclists, the 9 km Open and the 5 km Green Rides allowed participants the experience the joy of cycling, while promoting fuel conservation, with the underlying message of reducing excessive dependency on oil for a cleaner and greener environment.The winner in the Elite (Men’s) category was Satbir Singh, while the Elite Women’s championship was won by T Manorama Devi. Over 4500 cyclists participated in the Green ride amidst an atmosphere of gaiety and revelry, with almost all comfortably completing the 5 km stretch.The Cyclothon under the banner of Saksham Pedal Delhi was organized by Petroleum Conservation & Research Association (PCRA), and supported by the oil companies viz. IOCL, BPCL, HPCL, ONGC, GAIL, OIL, MRPL, CPCL, NRL and IGL with technical guidance from Cycling Federation of India. Another 76 such cyclothons are planned Pan-India over the next 2 months to sensitize the country to adopt the ideology of conservation for a greener environment.