Muses of Murari

Now, the idea I am going to discuss is not new. It is currently being practiced in many western countries. Lot of thought, process & logistics are already in place in some countries. The question is, how good it is applicable to our country? given the fact of explosive growth of motor vehicles, followed by their fuel consumption and the health related issues and also to some extent, prospective new business avenues.

Given, the massive amount of vehicles strewn to Indian roads every day and the amount of fuel consumed and the so called carbon gas emitted and also the terrible traffic that comes as excess baggage, we can have an alternative. India is land of contrasts. At one end, people are starving for food and at other end, people are suffering from obesity. Some of the health issues and also fitness regimes also need good alternative. We have lot of good business ideas. Some are new and some are old. Some old ideas can be reinvented to fit into today’s world. May be the old ideas can be rejuvenated with fresh image and with a welcome attitude.

The alternative thing is cycling and the old idea waiting to be revived is “idea of selling bicycles”.

When I was in middle school, I pestered my father to buy me a bicycle. It was dream. It was peer pressure. And also I was joy of riding it. I continued my cycling days till I entered college, after which the typical Indian college guy mind set dropped in. “Hey, I am a college guy, I cannot come in a bicycle. What the heck gals will think of me?”. After college, life became too important to look things like bicycle. And till now, I hardly, almost never rode a bicycle.

People from western countries are increasingly adapting bicycles into their every day lives. Even for commuting to work, people started to use bicycle. Is it becoming a trend? or may be this is driven by gas prices? Google it, to find out.

In some countries, they sold the idea of modern cycling. I mean, not the design of bicycles, but things like parking system for bicycles. Though I am not completely aware of parking system working, but a sketch of how system works, will give us an idea, how good it will work in our country and create small scale business opportunities to lower strata of pyramid. I will combine the idea already implemented with what could be done in Indian scenario.

The bicycle parking system works like this, each vehicle is identified with an unique number like engine number & chassis number in motor cycles. This unique number is etched in a RFID card, which can be read using RFID reader or some mechanism. (Or we can think of RFID etching in some part of bicycle.) This mechanism should be installed in prominent public places like, offices, schools, colleges, cinema halls etc.,. Every time, one parks into bicycle parking bay, which is series of vertical lock holders, and swipes the parking cards, the time and other things can be electronically stored in the parking bay’s memory chip. Once the person swipes out and takes his bicycle out, depending on duration of parking, the on-board chip can do some processing and deduct pre-paid hours in the card. This card, can be renewed periodically like cell phone sim card recharge. So by this way, the small vendors (like kirana owners) can sell these cards or renew them and pocket some commission. The fraud management, low balance and other possible negative scenarios (from local perspective) should be thought of and necessary mechanisms can be implemented.

From business perspective, this idea will boost, now the understandable situation of bicycle business in India. The parking system bays and the required electronics can be designed, manufactured and sold by Indian companies. May be SMEs get interested in doing this, with enough support and enthusiasm from the government. The parking cards can be distributed in small shops through out the country like the one that is happening for mobile phone pre-paid cards. I think, two or three companies can be selected to market this, to the common people. They need to take care of the entire system and can strike some revenue sharing mechanism with competitors and the government.

Health benefits are obvious. Cycling do help. This idea may also give tough competition to ubiquitous urban fitness centers. This will become a simple and healthy workout to common man, irrespective of his economics.

And the big word, now, the ever chanting word, the most prefixed word in today’s corporate products and also most sought out and much needed word in today’s context- “Green” also fits into this picture, perfectly. Imagine Rs. 60 petrol per litre coming down to Rs. 20 or Rs. 10. Possible with this idea? May be, yes. Is it too ambitious? May be, but, what’s wrong in it?

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