Ornamental lamps portraying images of the ancient past will embellish more parts of Mysuru, the City of Palaces, apart from the Core Heritage Area (CHA), with the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) identifying new roads for their installation.
Already, many key roads in the Central Business District (CBD), which were part of the Core Heritage Area in the vicinity of Mysuru Palace, had been adorned with ornate lamps representing bygone eras. These lamps, made from cast iron, had been specially outsourced from a manufacturer in Indore, the country’s cleanest city, in Madhya Pradesh.
The newest road where the lamps have been put up and are ready for inauguration is a stretch of Sheshadri Iyer Road, behind K.R. Hospital. This stretch falls in the ward represented by Mayor M.J. Ravi Kumar, who had installed such lamps on other roads falling under his ward.
An amount of ₹15 lakh had been spent on installing these lamps on this small stretch of the road. The base of one of the lamps has multiple lights along with a fountain. It has images of ‘Gandabherunda’ on five sides. “The idea is to depict an image of a bygone era. This is why more such lamps are being put up in my ward and also in other key locations in the CHA,” the Mayor told The Hindu.
He added that such lamps would be put up at Vontikoppal Circle and also at Prabha Theatre Circle near Gandhi Square. “Our aim is to have more tall ornate lamps at key traffic junctions,” he said.
Such lamps had also been installed along a stretch of Dhanwantri Road and N.S. Road. Ornamental lamps had been installed to suit the heritage image of the neighbourhood since the road abuts the iconic palace, a major landmark in the city. The lamps installed along one side of Sayyaji Rao Road in front of the MCC (along the palace boundary) light up the pavement which sees a high density of pedestrians.