Damaged barricades that were placed on the median, defunct lamp posts, and broken concrete of the median are common on Mettupalayam road in Coimbatore city, posing risks to road users.
According to M. Devendran, secretary of Coimbatore District Road Protection Committee, the organisation planted 2,100 saplings on the median on Mettupalayam road for four km from ITI to Viswanathapuram. Those were removed by the Highways Department during road widening and flyover works.
The barricades placed by the Department on the median were damaged by the public and these had not been attended to. Defunct lamp posts also remained in several places. The damaged barricades were more from Sanganur Pallam to Koundampalayam and at Thudiyalur, he said.
Though the Committee raised these issues with the Highways Department, there were no measures so far to either replace the barricades or remove the damaged ones, he said.
Officials of the Highways Department said the saplings on the medians need to be maintained properly. Since there were overgrown plants, the saplings were removed. The respective local bodies should also support maintenance of the infrastructure created. In the new projects, the Department included maintenance of the barricades and the medians. It would look at ways to repair or improve the existing medians, they said.
