Kolkata: Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das, along with other Olympians and Arjuna Awardees from Bengal, gathered at the Sports Authority of India’s Kolkata Regional Centre on Sunday for the final Fit India Sundays on Cycle event of 2025.
The year-end special edition, the 54th of Fit India Sundays on Cycle, featured a lively, carnival-style celebration with nearly 1,500 participants at the Sports Authority of India centre in Kolkata.
The event drew an extraordinary number of enthusiastic cyclists, including athletes, corporate professionals, students, CISF jawans, insurance company employees (the special partners of this edition), and people of all ages, turning the venue into a vibrant festival of movement, music, and community spirit.
The mega event in Kolkata was inaugurated by Olympians and Arjuna Awardees Deepika Kumari, Joydeep Karmakar, and Mangal Singh Champia, creating an energetic start to a winter morning focused on fitness and active lifestyles. Also attending were Arjuna Awardees Atanu Das, Rahul Banerjee, Bombayla Devi Laishram, and Susmita Singha Roy.
Padma Shri and Arjuna Awardee Deepika emphasised the significance of daily fitness, stating that energy and strength are vital not only for sports but also for personal life. She highlighted that fitness should be maintained every day and not restricted to just one Sunday. “We have to do this every day and I’m so happy to see over 1500 people join in today,” said Deepika.
Joydeep emphasised that initiatives such as Sundays on Cycle are encouraging people to reduce excessive screen time and develop more disciplined fitness routines. “A transformation starts with our simple behaviours – everyone here has turned their attention from phones and have become busy with their cycles,” said the former shooter.
“Everything falls in place when we get disciplined about fitness. It’s a good excuse for us to be here today, joining amidst this winter chill. In the last one year, over 20 Lakh people nationwide have joined in, and from now on, this movement will become even bigger,” Joydeep, fourth-place finisher at the 2012 Olympics, added.
Participants enjoyed a variety of high-energy activities including cycling, Zumba sessions, Bengali folk music, captivating yoga performances, rope-skipping demonstrations, and several other fitness activities that maintained lively energy levels despite the winter chill.
Dronacharya Award winner Kuntal Roy expressed gratitude to the Sports Authority of India and the Fit India initiative, emphasising that both mental and physical fitness collectively influence a person’s life. “I thank SAI and the Fit India program for this initiative. The concept of fitness is the key of life. Mental and physical fitness rules our whole life. Therefore, we have to keep ourselves fit through various programs on fitness like Sundays on Cycle,” the former athletics chief coach at SAI, added.
During the event, ten local cycling clubs and the state cycling champions were honoured, including Fit India ambassadors and champions such as Kanthi Dutt, Garima Diwakar, Manas Saha, and Raima Majumder.
Besides Kolkata, events took place concurrently at 10000 locations nationwide, hosted at Sports Authority of India and Khelo India centres. These included SAI Training centres in Ludhiana, Rajnandgaon, Dharamsala, Kokrajhar, Hazaribagh, Golaghat, and others. In Bikaner, Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal, also attended the cycle rally.
Launched in December 2024 by Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Mansukh Mandaviya, Fit India Sundays on Cycle has gradually grown into a people-centric movement, motivating citizens to incorporate fitness into their weekly schedule and fostering cleaner, greener transportation. To date, more than 20 lakh individuals have participated from over 2 lakh locations.
The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, in partnership with the Cycling Federation of India (CFI), Yogasana Bharat, and MY Bharat, organises Fit India Sundays on Cycle.
(IANS)
