Srinagar, Apr 22: In a cash-starved City where government has no money to undertake much needed road widening projects, ahead of reopening of Durbar offices here, millions of rupees are spend on painting of zebra stripes on Devri stone, which border footpaths and other road dividers.
 The black-and–white coating on the naturally beautiful stone is seen not only as wastage of money but also vandalization of the world famed carved stone locally carved Devri.
 And the interesting facet of the issue is that even though the government dislikes the zebra stripes on the Devri stones, the Roads and Building department continues to go on with the brush and the paint drive.

THE STRIPES
 Every year ahead of Durbar move or any VVIP visits to Srinagar, most of the footpaths and other road borderings made of the Devri, are shadowed in black-and-white stripes.
 This year, as per sources, around Rs 30 lakh are to be spent on the painting of the Devri borders on Srinagar streets.
 “They (R&B) make a naturally beautiful stone look ugly through human intervention. This is typically ridiculous on the part of those at the helm of affairs,” said a prominent artist, requesting not to be named.
 “Across the world, the Devri stone is famed for its looks but in Srinagar this beauty is shadowed through absurd painting,” he added.

TOURISTS AGHAST
 Stephen Hanes, a tourist from Europe said the zebra stripes on Boulevard were much like the remix of the “beauty and the beast” story.
 “This black and white coating looks like a beast on this eye-catching stone(Devri). I wonder why the authorities haven’t been concerned about this issue at a place of prime tourism importance,” the tourist complained.

R&B SPEAKS
 The R&B officials said: “Coloring of walls and the road borders has been there for decades.”
 “Painting the Devri stone has been a custom with our department. Why are people suddenly becoming conscious towards this issue… Such stripes are required for traffic regulation,” the official said.

MINISTER’S VIEW
 Interestingly the Minister of State of R&B Javed Ahmed Dar holds the general perception on the coloring aesthetics admitting that paint on Devri makes it “look ugly”. This has been his view since last year.
 “I have been of the same opinion that the Devri stones shouldn’t be painted because they naturally look beautiful,” the MOS told Greater Kashmir.
 “This is a wrong practice and needs to be stopped. I will get formal orders issued in this regard,” he added. But a year on, the Minister seems to have missed to get the orders issued as the public money continues to go waste on painting the Devri stone, to make the beautiful look ugly!

Lastupdate on : Sun, 22 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 22 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:00 IST