In May 2023, our urban visionaries dropped 900 bicycles and 100 docking stations onto the streets of Srinagar – from Batamaloo to Lal Chowk – with all the pomp of a tech revolution.
Slogans flew. Ribbons were cut. Bureaucrats beamed. And Kashmir was told: “Ride into the green future!” They were also told “Burn Fat, Not Fuel”.
Two years later, the only thing riding high is the embarrassment.
Rs 13 Crore Spent – Rs 4.48 Lakh Earned
Let’s do the math bureaucrats hate:
- Rs 9.06 crore was spent on “infrastructure” – basically some tracks that no one uses and signs no one reads.
- Rs 4.14 crore was given away as Viability Gap Funding to the private operator. Yes, we literally paid them to operate.
- Rs 1.2 crore of that has already been transferred.
All that – and what did the people of Srinagar pay back into this “public” service? A princely Rs 4.48 lakh.
That’s 0.34% return. Not a typo. Just a tax-funded joke. Even Azim Premji will wonder at novelty of this profit margin!
Who Signed Off on This?
Someone, somewhere, in some climate-controlled office, thought it would be brilliant to copy Amsterdam!
- without the lanes,
- without the culture,
- without the law,
- without even checking if people can cycle safely in our urban chaos.
Kashmir’s roads, already a game of chicken for pedestrians, were expected to welcome cyclists.
It’s like launching a boat in the desert – and being shocked when it doesn’t sail.
Get that “someone” on board and fire him. If it was a bunch of them, get the bunch. But, then, as they say ‘if wishes were horses, men would ride them.’
But Why Does It Work in Some Foreign Cities?
Let’s be fair. Public cycling can work.
In Amsterdam:
- Over 750 km of safe cycling lanes.
- Priority traffic signals for bikes.
- Laws that actually protect cyclists.
In Copenhagen:
- Euros 35 million spent every year maintaining cycling infrastructure.
- Workplaces give incentives to cycle.
- Citizens are trained from school in road cycling.
Here in Srinagar?
- No dedicated lanes.
- No protection.
- No education.
- Just bikes – rusting like our public accountability.
The Script We Know Too Well
Here’s how it works:
- Draw a glossy plan.
- Throw public money at it.
- Hire a private operator.
- Deploy your “pimps”.
- Strike “the deal”.
- Blame the public when it fails.
- Repeat with a new name.
This was never about solving mobility. It was about creating a photo opportunity that looks good in Smart City presentations and annual reports.
What Rs 13 Crore Could’ve Bought Instead?
- 300 well-equipped public toilets.
- Footpaths in old city localities.
- Complete modernization of dozens of government school labs.
- Clean water connections for thousands of homes.
- Or – just wild thought – fixing the roads we already have.
But no. We chose bicycles for a population given no place to ride them. Genius.
Smart Bureaucracy: NO Feasibility, No Shame
No demand survey. No public consultation. No education drive. No enforcement of safety. Just buy. Spend. Smile. Vanish. And now that it’s failed, not one official will lose a chair. Because in Kashmir’s officialdom, failure is not punished – it’s promoted.
This wasn’t an accident. It was a deliberate circus. No one rides the bikes because the planners never intended to be ridden – just photographed. And if Srinagar is riding anything today, it’s a cycle of incompetence where the only wheel that spins is the one taking money out of our pockets.
Babu, the least Srinagarities expect is either ride them yourself or remove them. They look like tumours of your UPSC imagination. Please.
