Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das, along with other Olympdigihunt and Arjuna Awardees from Bengal, gathered at the Sports Authority of India’s Kolkata Regional Centre for the final edition of Fit India Sundays on Cycle for 2025.
The year-end special edition marked the 54th event of Fit India Sundays on Cycle and featured a lively celebration with nearly 1,500 participants at the Sports Authority of India centre in Kolkata.
The event attracted a diverse group of enthusiastic cyclists, including athletes, corporate professionals, students, CISF jawans, and employees from insurance companies, who were the special partners for this edition. This vibrant festival transformed the venue into a hub of movement, music, and community spirit.
The mega event was inaugurated by Olympdigihunt and Arjuna Awardees Deepika Kumari, Joydeep Karmakar, and Mangal Singh Champia, creating an energetic start to the winter morning focused on fitness. Arjuna Awardees Atanu Das, Rahul Banerjee, Bombayla Devi Laishram, and Susmita Singha Roy also attended.
Padma Shri and Arjuna Awardee Deepika highlighted the importance of daily fitness, stating that energy and strength are vital not just for sports but for personal life. She emphasized that fitness should be a daily commitment: “We have to do this every day and I’m so happy to see over 1500 people join in today,” said Deepika.
Joydeep emphasized that initiatives like Sundays on Cycle encourage people to reduce screen time and adopt 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,” explained 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,” added Joydeep, who finished fourth at the 2012 Olympics.
Participants engaged in various high-energy activities including cycling, Zumba sessions, Bengali folk music, captivating yoga performances, rope-skipping demonstrations, and several other fitness activities, maintaining 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, stating that both mental and physical fitness greatly 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,” noted the former athletics chief coach at SAI.
During the event, ten local cycling clubs and state cycling champions were honored, including Fit India ambassadors and champions such as Kanthi Dutt, Garima Diwakar, Manas Saha, and Raima Majumder.
In addition to Kolkata, events were held simultaneously at 10,000 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 more. 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 evolved into a people-centric movement, motivating citizens to integrate fitness into their weekly routine and promoting 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, organizes Fit India Sundays on Cycle.