Display board near Cricket Stadium, Chandigarh. (Express photo) For displaying advertisements of various brands, the Chandigarh Smart City has allotted 617 sites, with 72 square feet space each, across Chandigarh to a Hyderabad-based firm, Smart Bike Tech, which is also engaged in the public bike sharing system in the city. Of the allotted space, at least 24 square feet space at each site will be reserved for depicting how to use a smart bike, how to lock it and where to drop it. The advertisements will be displayed at two boards of size 6×4 feet.
The UT Administration has also reserved the right to display its messages about the various schemes below the advertisement boards.
The Hyderabad firm has begun installing the two advertisement boards each at various places, which are designated for the docking stations. Sources said that the firm is yet to decide the price to be charged for the advertisement from the interested brands, products etc.
Chandigarh is amongst a few cities, which is implementing the Public Bike Sharing System on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model at a large scale. Sources said, “Two advertisement boards will be installed at each docking station (cycle stand). One of the sides of one of the boards will be for the users and three others for commercial advertisements. At least 617 sites were earmarked by the office of Chief Architecture of Chandigarh. The company will have to pay Rs 12 lakh annually to the administration for running the public bike sharing system. The company will only be entitled to charge money after the completion of the first phase, in which 1,250 cycles will be provided at 155 docking stations. The project was divided into four phases.”
NP Sharma, General Manager, Chandigarh Smart City, said, “The Hyderabad based company has started installing the advertisement boards as per the agreement with the UT Administration. One side of the one of the board at every site is for educating the users of bikes. So far, work is going on at least 25 docking stations at prominent locations in Chandigarh.”
The residents can scan the QR code. There will be a facility of wallet too, where users will be able to get prepaid top-up done for Rs 100, Rs 200 or Rs 500. After the ride is completed, the user will be shown the amount they have to pay and it will automatically be deducted from the attached digital wallet. The company recently charged Rs six lakh from the UT Administration for allowing its cycles to be used in Chandigarh under the Cycle4Change Challenge.
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