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Eighteen participants from five countries are having a rollicking time as part of the Rickshaw Challenge. Flagged off from Mumbai on August 10, these participants of the Mumbai-Chennai leg reached Mangaluru on Tuesday.
The rickshaw rally is being held in four legs. Classic Run - Chennai to Thiruvananthapuram, Malabar Rampage - Thiruvananthapuram to Goa, Deccan Odyssey - Goa to Mumbai and Mumbai Express - Mumbai to Chennai.
The Mumbai Express leg is organised by Mangalore Round Table (MRT) 115, in association with Mangalore Ladies Circle 82 and Madras Midtown Round Table 42. The participants hail from the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Portugal.
Adam, a participant from Auckland in New Zealand, said that the rally was part of an adventurous study tour. They will travel to various parts of India in autorickshaws. In the course of their journey, the members will visit schools. The teams had a practice session in Mumbai on August 9, after a couple of events the previous day. The rally later progressed to Alibag, Pune, Mahabaleshwar, Ratnagiri, Panaji and Bhatkal, before reaching Mangaluru. It will now travel to Mysuru, Bengaluru, Vellore and finally, Chennai. By then, they would have covered 2,000 km.
All together, from the four legs of the mega sojourn, there are 40 participants representing the UK, USA, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Malaysia, Spain, Barbados and Canada. There are a total of 16 autorickshaws in the Rickshaw Challenge, driven by the team members themselves. MRT 115 Tabler Deepak Ramani welcomed the rally at the Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat school in Mallikatte. MRT 115 chairman Kenneth Serrao said that the participants would raise funds for the Round Table national project ‘Freedom Through Education’ towards educating poor rural children. A separate charity account has been opened for the purpose.
‘Chennai Garage’ general manager Princly J said that the company had outsourced the autorickshaws for the rally. It costs Rs 60,000 per head for the participants and the expenditure for the entire rally comes to Rs 13 lakh.