The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) will soon be a more environment friendly campus.
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) will soon be a more environment friendly campus. Students and visitors will now be able to rent cycles inside the institute for commuting.
“This is a scheme by the Rent a Cycle Foundation (RAC-F). It approached IISc to put this in place and we will merely be giving the space,” said Prof TG Sitharam, chairman, Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning (CiSTUP), IISc.
RAC-F has also partnered with BSA Cycles to provide new cycles for the scheme.
“One would need a one-time registration to use these services,” he said.
Currently, they are looking at having about four points across the campus and 15-20 cycles per station. The scheme aims at making the campus more environment friendly. We also want to gauge how the rent-a-cycle scheme would work in a controlled environment like IISc before implementing it elsewhere,” he added.
Cycles can be rented not only by students and faculty but also by visitors.
“It will be open from 7am to 8pm and it will cost `2 to hire a cycle for an hour,” he said, adding that an MoU between RAC-F and IISc is likely to be signed in a week.
Officials from RAC-F, however, did not comment on the new development saying that they would divulge more details when the MoU is signed.
However, sources close to RAC-F revealed that this was a step towards creating a “carbon neutral campus”.
“We want to reduce the emission of carbon in the campus. The initial budget is around `5 lakh but we are speaking to a few steel companies for sponsorship,” sources said.
The scheme would be expanded to accommodate 300 bicycles and 10 stations in the campus.
“It’s too early to say how we will gauge the success of this scheme but it will depend on demand and supply. There are 3,000 students in the campus and based on how it works here, we will explore how we can install a similar model in smaller cities like Mysore as it would be too hard to do so in a big city like Bangalore,” the source said.
This is not the first time cycles are distributed in IISc.
“It was done a few years ago, when students handed out old and used cycles in the campus. Now it is more of an initiative by RAC-F,” said Sitharam.
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