Weekly ‘car-free’ day to curb pollution in IT hub Cyberabad

Suresh Dharur

Tribune News Service

Hyderabad, July 26

In a novel initiative to de-congest the traffic and reduce pollution in one of the busiest urban corridors in the country, the Hyderabad software industry association and the traffic police have joined hands to declare one day in a week as “car-free” day.

Every Thursday would be a car-free day for over 3.50 lakh techies working in Cyberabad area, the hub of IT industry. At present, nearly 80 percent of the software professionals use their personal cars to commute to their offices. “The aim is to keep at least 50,000 cars of IT professionals off the roads,” said Ramesh Loganathan, President of Hyderabad Software Exports Association (HYSEA).

The Telangana Information Technology department and the state transport commissioner will unveil alternative transport arrangements for Thursdays including special buses “she shuttles” for women and carpooling.

“We have taken up this initiative to reduce pollution, ease traffic and to encourage the culture of carpooling, which is popular in several global cities. Carpooling is where a group of people travel together to a particular location in one designated car rather than using their own private vehicle. It will decreasing the number of vehicles on the road and also reduces the carbon footprint in the air”, the City Police Commissioner CV Anand said.

According to the initiative, undertaken by Hyderabad Software Exports Association (HYSEA) in association with Telangana’s IT department and transport department, Thursdays will be declared “car-free” from next week.

“By September-October, we hope that over one lakh cars will be off the roads every Thursday,” the HYSEA chief said.

Besides de-congesting the arterial roads in the area, HYSEA hopes to reduce pollution also. “Even if we manage to get 20 per cent of cars of IT professionals off the road every Thursday, it would be a great achievement. I think in the next four to six weeks, the number of cars off the road on Thursdays will grow as the initiative catches up among IT professionals who are eager to participate but are concerned about the alternative arrangements,” Loganathan said.

The police officials say that the initiative would be extended to other areas if the present experiment is proved successful. Hundreds of IT professionals living in areas like Madhapur, Gachibowli, Kukatpally, Miyapur, Madinaguda, Lingampalli and Mehdipatnam would be encouraged to join the initiative.

“It is a voluntary initiative. We cannot ban cars altogether. The initiative has to come from the companies rather from the police side. We can only help in coordinating but we cannot impose it on anybody,” the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Avinash Mohanty said.