Teachers from the Jharia based social organisation Samadhan on Thursday took out a 100 km cycle ride to spread Covid awareness on the occasion of World Bicycle Day.

The organisation provides free education to children from economically deprived families.

The awareness drive was taken out by Samadhan founder Chandan Singh and his two colleagues Ravindra Kumar and Bittu Singh. They cycled from Sai Mandir of Sindri to Govindur Kisan Chowk and other places like Nawadih and Bank More.

The drive also coincided with the partial relaxation of the state-wide lockdown and thus also aimed at cautioning people against any over enthusiasm during the time.

Talking to the Telegraph Online, Singh who completed his march at around 1 pm at Jharia said, “Any slackness at this crucial point of time of the second wave of Covid may lead to return of the previous situation so we need to be very cautious and observe all the laid protocols in the strictest sense.”

“We stopped at several places in between our march like at Thana More in Jharia, Kisan Chowk in Barwaddah and Bank More in Dhanbad Sadar and appealed to people to get vaccinated as early as possible in order to ensure safety for themselves and their family members as our cycle march also coincided with relaunching of vaccination drive for 18+ which began in Dhanbad since today after a gap of eight days,” said Singh.

“Working with IIT (ISM) administration as part of Covid awareness and medicine and other kit distribution drive in around 29 villages and slums in the surrounding villages of the institute since May 15 we realised that more awareness is required among rural populace about vaccination as well as Covid protocol observance etc so we carried out awareness in villages also as part of our march,” said Ravindra Kumar, a resident of Lodna More in Jharia who besides imparting free education to children of economically deprived families is preparing for recruitment exams of Railway Recruitment Board, Banking services etc.

Bittu Singh, a resident of Polytechnic road in Dhanbad said,“Interacting with the students their parents during online classes we realised that there is a need to create more awareness among people about the different measures like strict observance of Covid protocols and benefits of vaccination so we took out the March today.”

“We also apprised people about other health benefits of cycling like increased cardiovascular strength, muscle strength and fitness,” said Singh.