Upkeep of medians beneath metro viaduct in doldrums

KMRL struggles with funds for maintaining medians under Kochi metro viaduct, resorting to advertisements on pillars for revenue.

Faced with flak for ill-maintained medians beneath the Kochi metro viaduct, Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) said it was struggling to maintain them for want of sponsorship and corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds.

Funds paucity has also affected the readying of vertical gardens mulled in every 10th metro pillar in the 27-km corridor. This has led to the setting up of huge advertisement boards on almost all metro pillars, which, the police said, often distracted motorists. At the accident-prone curve at Elamkulam on SA Road, over a dozen two-wheeler riders had died during the past three years, they added.

Informed sources said the firm entrusted with landscaping medians beneath the metro corridor found it extremely difficult to get sponsors for maintaining them. “Many shops and other institutions that came forward to sponsor the initiative backtracked later and stopped paying the agreed amount. This led to the stalling of the project to plant shoeflower saplings, which need lesser maintenance, on all vacant medians,” they added.

Stating that attempts to preen up all medians ever since the metro was commissioned in 2017 had not materialised owing to the difficulty in getting sponsors and CSR funding for five to 10 years, metro sources said they did not have funds to spare for the upkeep of medians. “We are only making operational profit vis a vis the huge capital investment and are hence trying to cut down on expenses,” they said.

Meanwhile, efforts are on to generate alternative revenue in the form of advertisements in all available spaces, including metro pillars. As for concern over advertisement boards on the pillars distracting motorists, the sources said instructions had been issued not to put up LED display boards and videos. Every 10th pillar where a vertical garden was mulled too was handed over as advertisement space since setting up vertical gardens atop them and maintaining plants would entail huge expense. Creeper plants are cheap and need less maintenance, but they are not ideal for pillars since their roots could turn harmful to the pillars in the long run, they added.

A firm that had been entrusted with the task of maintaining 50 medians earlier this year has, in the meantime, begun work to landscape 30 of them. The work to ready the rest of the medians has been affected due to the difficulty in getting compost from the Brahmapuram garbage treatment yard, it is learnt.