Raahgiri Day and its impact
byKanika Jindal
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EMBARQ India and WRI India hosted a webinar on Raahgiri Day and its impact on 12th June, 2014. The webinar was presented by Amit Bhatt.
Raahgiri Day is India’s first sustained car-free citizen initiative that started in Gurgaon on Nov 17, 2013. The scale of Raahgiri Day’s impact has been recognized recently, when it won the early-bird prize for UL and Ashoka Changemakers: Safer Roads, Safer India Competition and was selected as one of six most innovative solutions in addressing road safety. Raahgiri Day was also chosen as the 24 most innovative ideas from urban India that could be pathways for green cities by the Earth Day Network. So this webinar was a reinforcement of Raahgiri Day’s potential at the national level.
The webinar focussed on the central idea that this movement is trying to propagate – the need of Raahgiri and the process of making it happen. It ended with the analyses of the impact of this initiative, based on various parameters, including Non-Motorised Transport, Physical activity, Air and noise pollution, Local business and Road safety.