Corporation to clean up city footpaths

Stones removed after relaying the footpath on Jayalakshmi Vilas Road near Ramaswamy Circle in Mysuru have not yet been cleared.

Criticism has driven the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) to take up the task of freeing footpaths from all kinds of obstacles in its bid to set up an ‘unhindered pathway’ for pedestrians at the risk of being hit by motorists with roads getting increasingly unsafe for them.

The footpaths in the city were turning into ‘dumping zones’ for discarded material of the civic body. The footpath on a stretch of Jayalakshmi Vilas Road, in Chamarajapuram locality here, best illustrates this neglect. Heaps of discarded stone slabs removed after some development and beautification works by the MCC had been dumped on the footpath, blocking pedestrian movement, forcing them to walk on the busy road.

Such examples of footpaths turning into ‘dump yards’ are aplenty. In the city centres, footpaths were encroached upon, again leaving little space for pedestrians.

When contacted, MCC Commissioner G. Jagadisha told

The Hindu that he had asked the officers of all nine zones here to free all obstructions on footpaths and make them functional. “The problem of dumping materials has come to my notice. I recently got the electric poles dumped on the footpath cleared. After the beautification and development works, the materials had been abandoned there. I have asked the officers to clear them immediately,” he said.

The commissioner said stone slabs had been cleared from some localities and dumped in zones 2 and 6.

On the footpath encroachments in the city centers, he said, “Encroachments are being cleared in phases. There won’t be leeway for anybody.”

Pedestrian space has shrunk with footpaths making way for illegal parking and commercial activities. The police had also maintained that the lack of footpath space has led to accidents with pedestrians.

The width of pavements on certain roads in the city had been reduced to widen roads. This poses another danger to pedestrians.