KMC to beautify important roads in city

Kolkata: Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has taken up a scheme to beautify some of the important roads in the city.

Shrubs will be planted on the road median that is being constructed between Beckbagan and Mullickbazar. After Mullickbazar, it is not possible to set up road median because of the tram track. The state government has given Rs 150 crore to beautify roads, parks and upgrade lighting arrangements. It may be mentioned that whoever visits Kolkata praises the beautification drives taken up by the civic authorities.

Another road median will come up from Moulali crossing upto Sealdah flyover while the third one will be constructed from Golpark to Dhakuria. The estimated cost of the medians will be around Rs 18 crore.

The KMC has already constructed road medians covering 18 km of city roads. There are road medians on the stretch of Sarat Bose Road, Asutosh Mukherjee Road and Chittaranjan Avenue.

The shrubs are watered regularly and the road medians are cleaned. It is interesting to note that when the medians were first constructed, senior KMC officials thought that it would not be possible to maintain them as people will dump garbage, cigarette butts and other stuff. But the awareness drives launched by KMC became quite effective and people do not dump garbage and destroy the plants.

The medians have also the reduced the number of accidents at these thoroughfares because of the to and fro traffic movements.

The state government has taken up an elaborate scheme to beautify the city. High-mast lamps are installed at the intersections of many important roads. The blue and white chain of lights installed on many roads, have been put up as a part of the beautification drive.

Similarly, the parks and squares have also been beautified. Solar lights have been installed in many parks.

It may be recalled that when trident lamps were installed for the first time, many birds failing to withstand the bright light died and their carcasses were found on the streets like Southern Avenue and inside Rabindra Sarobar.