CMC swings into action:

Cleaner, greener Colombo

By Ranil Wijayapala

The beautifully laid foot walks, nicely designed roundabouts and centre islands decorated with flowers are now becoming a common scene in Colombo as the city is now being transformed into a cleaner and greener one by the city administrators.

The new look given to the area around the Public Library and the Nicholas Marcas Fernando Mawatha and many other roundabouts in the city has earned the appreciation of the public as they are becoming places of public attractions in the city with those new changes. This has become a part of the extensive effort taken by the Colombo Municipal Council now administered under the supervision of Special Commissioner Omar Kamil to transform the city into an attractive metropolitan area.

“The beautification of the city has also been given a priority in our agenda along with the reconstruction and redesigning of the road network in the city”, Special Commissioner Omar Kamil commenting on the city beautification program said.

“It is not only the citizen of Colombo who are benefitted by the city beautification program, the private sector institutions engage in their businesses in the city are also immensely benefitting from this program”, he added.

Therefore, the CMC has decided to work alongside private and corporate sector institutions to re-design and maintain the city roundabouts whilst adding the beautification of centre islands of the main streets in the city.

According to Director Lands and Environmental Development of the Colombo Municipal Council Lalith Wickremaratne, around 25 roundabouts are being maintained by private sector companies in the city.

“There is a positive response from the private sector institutions regarding the sponsoring of roundabouts and centre islands in the city”, he added.

“The CMC is handing over those roundabouts for those private companies on annual contracts and they are being renewed every year”, he added.

When handing over those roundabouts for maintenance the CMC is giving some suggestions about what should be there in the roundabout whether it is a fountain, flower pot or any other plant.

“Then we ask them to get landscape architect and come with a proposal for the respective roundabout after giving them those suggestions. After going through their proposal we give our approval for their landscaping design”, he added.

According to the Deputy Municipal Commissioner Engineering Works Vishaka Dias, the CMC has a list of conditions before handing over those roundabouts to the private sector for maintenance.

“We say that if there is a need for road development we can takeover.

If they are not doing them properly also we takeover them”, she added.

Traffic view

“The most important thing is that they can’t block the traffic view when they are developing the roundabouts. Since they are spending money for the development of the roundabout we have laid conditions. In case there is road development the roundabout can be demolished. We can’t give those roundabouts to them permanently”, she added.

The private sector companies can also have some sign boards and advertisements on the roundabouts when they sponsor and maintain them.

“We have allowed them for various reasons. First they can have publicity and they can be proud of maintaining such places for prestige. Some people are maintaining those places”, Wickremaratne the Director in charge of the city roundabouts said.

Once they have their name on it they also have some sort of responsibility to maintain it. Obviously if somebody says that this roundabout is maintained by this company everybody knows whether that is being properly maintained or not.

He said many roundabouts in the city have become popular among the people by the name of the companies which are sponsoring those roundabouts.

Within the past few months many roundabouts in the city which had not been properly maintained by those private companies were handed over to other private companies.

Apart from the city roundabouts the centre islands of the city also became a part of the city beautification program.

“Recently, we started to beautify the centre islands like the Lipton Circus. You can see some bamboo tree planted. In some places you see some flower pots where we have some bougainvillaea plants”, Wickremaratne added.

The problem regarding these centre islands is that those trees are exposed to so much of hazards like dust and carbon monoxide.

“Not all the trees withstand these hazards. Bougainvillaea can withstand those hazards. That is why we are recommending those plants for these centre islands. Bougainvillaea is also grown where there is a lot of sunshine”, he added.

According to Deputy Commissioner Vishaka Dias the CMC can’t decide the site plan as the sites vary from one place to the other.

Large bushes

“At some of the areas you need to see the other side of the traffic and some areas you don’t need to see the other side. At some places you can have large bushes and trees and at other areas the landscape should be at a lower level”, she added.

According to Engineer Wickremaratne when the CMC was designing the Marcas Fernando Mawatha near the Public Library the CMC designed the landscape plan also to accommodate some flower troughs and nearby Lakmedura came forward to sponsor it.

Introducing more greenery along the Galle Road will also be included on a priority basis in the rehabilitation of the section of Galle Road from Kollupitiya junction to Bambalapitiya junction. The CMC is seeking more private sector participation to beautify that section of the Galle Road.

The flower troughs which were there in the centre islands of the Galle Road are now being taken to D.R. Wijewardhana Mawatha and the CIC Company has agreed to maintain those flower troughs.

Apart from the maintenance of the roundabout the CMC is also going ahead with a program to trim the trees alongside the roads. The Lands and Environmental Development Division of the CMC is continuing this process every Saturday and Sunday.

Healthy growth

“Trimming we have to do. Otherwise it becomes imbalanced. For a healthy growth we have to prune those trees. As a rule we don’t remove any trees unless they collapse or these trees are posing a danger to the public”, Wickremaratne added.

According to Omar Kamil there is a lot of interest from the private sector for the city beautification project. “The main point is that the CMC is not spending anything for landscaping. When we ask somebody they never refuse.

They like to spend some money; they invest it and they do it for us”, he added.

Kamil said the CMC has given serious thought about reintroducing the competition among those who sponsoring those roundabouts and centre islands.

“We thought this year also we should give awards to those who have displayed more presentable roundabouts. There has to be some sort of appreciation of their good work”, he added.

He said when road reconstruction is taking place on a major road there is moral obligation on the part of those establishments which are fronting those roads also to improve their fronting by way of a foliage, little landscape and sort of a lighting to add beauty to the road.

“People always like to see the change when they drive around. Whatever there in the path they will like to see a change”, he added.

The CMC is approaching the private sector asking them to maintain these centre islands as it expect them to bring about improvements.

“Since we are doing all these things for the city, they also have an obligation to improve the city image as they are also benefitting from the citizenry. They earn money from the citizenry and they also have an obligation to give something back to the citizenry. Therefore they must also take upon themselves the task”, Kamil added.He said the CMC will also seek the assistance of the private sector to have nameboards on each and every tree alongside the roads in the city.“There are so many varieties of trees alongside the roads. We have to fix the name of the trees giving their common name and the botanical name. That will help educate the next generation and also the visitors to the city”, Kamil added.

What the CMC is trying to achieve by all these city beautification programs is to turn the city into a more greener city in the future.

“Our objective is to have a garden city and greener city which can attract city dwellers and also foreigners visiting the city”, he added.

Pix: - Chinthaka Kumarasinghe