Cycles given under 'Sabuj Sathi' help people reach offices

Kolkata: Sabuj Sathi bicycles given to the students of state-run and aided schools have come as a big savior as it helped people reach their place of work on Monday.

The state government started functioning with 70 per cent staffs on Monday and many employees reached their office on cycles.

Students between classes IX and XII are given cycles under Sabuj Sathi scheme, it is a pet project of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who named it and had sketched the logo which is affixed to every cycles. The project has bagged international award. Banerjee had distributed the first batch of cycles among the students at Gopiballavpur Block II gram panchayat on October 23, 2015. So far, over 84 lakh students have been given cycles at an estimated cost of nearly Rs 2500 crore.

Sunil Pramanick (name changed), a resident of Narendrapur reached office at Kolkata Municipal Corporation at Gariahat on her daughter's cycle."My daughter had got the Sabuj Sathi cycle. It has helped me to reach my office," he said.

A cycle received by Sagnik Chatterjee a resident of Boral in South 24-Parganas came as a blessings when it ferried Subir, his father an employee of a state government to office. "My son received a Hero cycle in 2017 and it helped me to reach my office today," he said. The project has very successfully brought down the number of school drop outs, particularly girls in the rural areas.