Cycle track along drain to raise awareness

Gurgaon: A cycle track has been planned by the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) along the length of Chakkarpur drain, in an innovative step to protect natural drains in the city.
The corporation is in the process of conducting an inspection of the area to check the feasibility of constructing a 1.5km long cycle track. A letter written by the MCG to Tehsildar states, “An off-road cycling track is under proposal to be constructed in Zone III for which the demarcation of MCG land is required.”
An MCG official told TOI, “Chakkarpur is an old drain in the city.Over the last few years, it got blocked and water from the drain started flowing into different stormwater drains. However, now that the restoration work of Chakkarpur has started, we are planning a lot of things including building a cycle track and plantation along the drain to beautify the area.” The official added that the idea is to motivate people to take up cycling so as to bring down pollution level.
Cyclists welcomed the idea. “It is a very good initiative and will encourage people to use bicycles more,” said Sujata Raghav, an avid cyclist. “Also, it will help raise awareness about protecting the natural drains in the city. We all saw what happened on Thursday (July 28). It happened because of destruction of natural drains,” Raghav added.
The 5.2km long drain, that starts from Chakarpur village and goes up till Sector 56, has already been undergoing restoration by the civic authorities, along with the help of a few corportes.
There are about 30 bandh (small dam) in the city, built before and after independence. However, no efforts were carried out by the authorities for years to revive them.