NKDA takes up initiative to jazz up fences, bus-stands in New Town
Kolkata: New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) has adopted an innovative approach in designing medians or fences colourfully and making bus stops more attractive with signages.
The move comes with New Town emerging as a major tourist destination and the gathering at different places of interest and entertainment hangouts located there increasing by leaps and bounds.
The rotary near Eco Space and another stretch from the first rotary to tank number 3 has been selected for the smart generation bamboo fencing. Designer fence art in bamboo and steel or painting steel frames have been undertaken in these two stretches.
One of the designs uses coloured bamboo strips within a designer steel contour, while the other uses steel and net to form a colourful pattern representing today's modern cityscape. The entire work is being done by the in-house architects of the green smart city.
"We are using bamboo but strengthening it with frames of steel to ensure that it does not get uprooted by any means. It has been found that the traditional bamboo fences, often painted in green and yellow on the medians of roads of New Town, need frequent maintenance and are also not resistant to mob pressures," a senior NKDA official said.
The fences protect the greens from man and cattle and at the same time, prevent pedestrians from crossing the streets randomly to reduce accidents.
"We wish to study the effectiveness of these two pilot projects over a one-year period before deciding to replicate it at other places," said Debashis Sen, chairman of NKDA.
The signages at bus stops are being designed with the dual aim of information and publicity. A pedestrian or a passenger coming down from a bus or a group of students having arrived at a place often waits for sometime in the bus stop with a shade.
The bus stand near Nazrul Tirtha displays information about movies while the one near Westin talks about Mother's Wax Museum, a very popular tourist destination.
"More bus stands are being designed in similar manner," the NKDA official added.
