Call to remove weeds along medians

Struggling with the outgrown vertical garden on Kochi metro’s pillars and weeds on medians, many two-wheeler riders are urging for authorities to take an action. 
Call to remove weeds along medians

KOCHI: Struggling with the outgrown vertical garden on Kochi metro’s pillars and weeds on medians, many two-wheeler riders are urging for authorities to take an action. “It’s become a challenge to wade through the Kaloor-Kacherippady stretch these days.

Apart from peepal trees, many weeds are flourishing along the median that may even affect the metro pillars. Besides, timely cleaning of the stretch could avoid several mishaps,” said Praveen V K, a resident of Kadavanthra.

People are also blaming private establishments that leased out the medians for their advertisement. “When Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) decided to lease out the medians, we expected them to maintain them. We hope the officials would remove the bushes soon,” said Shamsudheen P K, a techie.

KMRL officials have clarified that the process to clean up the bushes has already started. “The lockdown restrictions have impacted the upkeep of the stretches we leased out. Though many of those establishments have invested up to Rs 2 lakh for setting up the gardens, the impact of Covid has derailed their regular maintenance.

Though KMRL is directly maintaining the vertical gardens under metro stations, the upkeep of medians was vested with concerned private establishments. We have started cleaning medians from Kaloor JLN stadium,” said a KMRL official.

Zero carbon footprint system
KMRL has collaborated with private establishments and sponsors to develop and maintain over 215 medians since 2020. Many medians have received biodegradable gardening as part of the collaboration. Cochin Shipyard is maintaining over 16 medians. The plan was launched after finding that the maintainence of all the medians was not practical for KMRL. 

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