Firhad Hakim flags off corporate cycling event

KOLKATA: Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister Firhad Hakim on Sunday flagged off the first ever corporate cycling championship at Salt Lake Sector V. The event, hosted by the Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority (NDITA), witnessed as many as 325 participants including women.

"The excitement among the participants was immense with young boys and girls working with leading IT companies like IBM, Microsoft, Cognizant in Salt Lake taking part. These participants were nominated by the respective top brass of the companies," NDITA chairman Debashis Sen said.

The various categories of the events began at around 7 am sharp included slow cycling, fast cycling, fun cycling and women's cycling. There were awards for all the events except fun cycling. The route for the event was from the gate of Nalban Food Park till the entrance of Nicco Park and back. "The purpose of the event was to create awareness for a cleaner and greener Salt Lake Sector V that is referred as the IT hub," Sen said. Apart from Firhad Hakim and NDITA chairman Sen, Bidhannagar MLA Sujit Bose, Kamal Agarwala, chairman of Nasscom Eastern Regional Council were also present at the event. Corporate cycling has become quite popular in Hyderabad and Bangalore where hundreds of IT professionals take part in long distance cycling every Saturday and Sunday. The cycling event marked the beginning of the celebration of 70 years of Independence. Housing & Infrastructure Development Corporation has a number of events lined up on Independence Day as well. There will be free screening of the Bengali movie Ami Subhas Bolchi at Nazrul Tirtha at 10 am, special buffet lunch at only Rs 550 at Café Ekante restaurant in Eco Park and drone flying exhibition and band performance at Eco Park.