Samta Mulak Chowk gets another facelift

The Uttar Pradesh Public Works Department (UPPWD) is uprooting the plants inside the roundabout and will replace it with white stone pebbles. For this revamp,the PWD is procuring white round pebbles from the riverside of Ganga in Haridwar. Sources said that the cost of collecting one tonne of fixed-size stone pebbles — of 6-inch diameter — from the Ganga and transporting it to Lucknow was estimated to be about Rs 48,000.

“About Rs 25 lakh would be spent on the RCC flooring of the slopes and its covering with stone pebbles inside the chowk,” said a PWD official,on condition of anonymity.

There are two roundabouts and a triangular crossing at Samta Mulak Chowk,earlier known as Uptron crossing. The chowk was constructed in 2009 at the cost of about Rs 1.5 crore. Chief Minister Mayawati had dedicated this chowk to public on June 25,2009. Bronze statues of dalit icons,including Chhatrapati Shahuji Mahraj,Narain Guru and Jyotiba Phule,had been placed inside these roundabouts. Plantation was done on the slopes of the roundabouts and a small park constructed between the two roundabouts.

In the last one week,plants from the slopes have been uprooted and RCC flooring is being laid there during nights. More than three dozen labourers have been engaged to uproot the plants,remove earth and develop the RCC floor.

“A design has been prepared to make mounts of the pebble stones inside the small park between the two roundabouts,” said an official. “Plantation is being replaced with stones to reduce the maintenance cost. Pebbles do not change their texture with change in weather and maintain the original charm for longer period of time,” he added.

UPPWD Engineer-in-chief Tribhuvan Ram was not available for comment.