Hyderabad: Long drives along the Outer Ring Road, away from and beyond the crowded capital, one of the favourite pastimes for the city folk during these times of the pandemic, are all set to become more colourful.
These drives can now become a soothing affair for the eye, especially for nature lovers, with the efforts of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) finally blooming, literally, on the service roads, medians and other stretches along the ORR. The impact on the eye is multicoloured, with the civic body decking up the ORR with a host of colours brought about by thematic plantations.
The credit of the entire effort goes to the Urban Forestry wing of the HMDA, which has planted different species of various saplings that blossom in different colours in different seasons.
The efforts of HMDA is to ensure colourful flowering patterns on the service roads and medians on the ORR, officials said, pointing out that these efforts have started to bear fruit as the plants have now started blossoming, greeting travellers with colourful flowers.
HMDA had taken up plantation of different species like Spathodia Camponilata (Orange flowers) on the Narsingi-Kollur stretch, Cassia fistula (yellow flowers) on the Kollur-Patancheru, Tabebula Rosea (pink flowers) on the Patancheru-Mallampet route, Bahunia Blackeana (dark pink flowers) on the Dundigul-Shamirpet stretch, Jacaranda Mimosifolua (violet flowers) on the Shamirpet-Keesara road, apart from several other shorter stretches along the ORR.
The striking part is most of these flowers blossom in the October to March season. After about a month, driving along these different stretches will be even more pleasant for motorists as there will be full blossom of flowers, an HMDA official said.
The exercise has been on for the last five years, with about 11 lakh saplings being planted on 13 stretches of ORR since then. Maintenance and ensuring growth of the saplings is a challenge and constant monitoring is being done by the HMDA’s Urban Forestry wing.
“At times, despite our efforts, the plants do not blossom to their full potential due to genetic variations or lack of nutritional supplements, etc. These issues are regularly addressed by deploying more workers and monitoring by supervisory teams,” the official added.
