Bhubaneswar: Odisha woman Sarika Bhatt is making international headlines for being selected as one among the “Remarkable Women in Transport” from around the world by Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI), Germany.
TUMI is the leading global implementation initiative on sustainable mobility formed through a union of 11 partners and is based in Germany. TUMI supports transport projects all around the world and enables policy makers to transform urban mobility.
Sarika was selected for her work in promoting walking and cycling in cities as she is a co-founder of Raahgiri Day, an open streets movement that started from Gurugram and has now grown to over 70 locations in the country. She is also the director of Vision Zero programme that looks to address road safety issues, especially those of pedestrians and cyclists. She has been part of and has created multiple other campaigns like Car Free Challenge, Pedal to Work challenge etc all around using sustainable transportation.
Sarika was instrumental in introducing Raahgiri as the Sunday street festival in the city by the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation on January 17, 2016. However, later Raahgiri was renamed Patha Utsav by the city authorities and it has completed more than 80 episodes since then.
Gurugram-based Sarika, is an architect and urban planner with over 15 years of experience in working on non-motorized transport projects, road safety, citizen engagement and urban planning. She is currently head of Transport and Road Safety at World Resource Institute (WRI) India.
