RAWALPINDI: The Rawal Cycling Saturdays initiative will be launched by the second week of February, the aim of which is to encourage people to take up cycling in the Rawalpindi Division and adopt a healthy lifestyle, Commissioner retired Capt Mohammad Mahmood said.

Promotion of a healthy lifestyle among citizens is also the main objective of the Global Active Cities project, for which Rawalpindi has recently become the first partner city from Pakistan.

He said cycling has witnessed an exponential growth in big cities of Pakistan during the last few years and the divisional administration of Rawalpindi is collaborating with different ‘Sports for All’ community-centric initiatives to promote the culture of physical activity and sports through a series of different events.

He expressed these views while presiding over a meeting to plan the launch of the initiative. The meeting was attended by representatives of government departments along with founding members of the Critical Mass Islamabad-Rawalpindi, a leading cycling group, and Active Cities Committee of Pakistan.

Government departments will act as facilitators for the initiative, Mr Mehmood said, adding the cycling group was engaged in the initiative as they have been working towards promotion of the sport since the past 15 years.

Every citizen of the twin cities has been invited to join the initiative and an online mechanism will be made for the general public to become part of it.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2021