Lucknow Nagar Nigam — The hazards of tiled pavements and walking tracks

The walking strips in all major parks in the city have been made “pucca” with tiles. This has clearly increased the incidence of knee damage in many walkers as confirmed by the local orthopaedicians. The fact that walking and jogging on a hard surface causes slow damage in the knee joints has been endorsed by prominent orthopaedic surgeons and sports physicians of the country. I am myself a proof to this fact because I have developed knee pain after an year of walking on the hard strip in Lohia Park. Will it not be better that the LDA builds grass or “kutchha” tracks alongside the tiled tracks? This will be in a large interest of the morning walkers all over the city. More and more walkers want to walk on grass tracks now.

Most of the pavements in the residential areas are being covered by locking tiles. On one hand the Nagar Nigam cries of the rain water harvesting, while on the other hand, it’s act of converting the “kutchha” pavements into “pucca” ones is preventing the rain water further from getting down the earth surface. This is bound to further drive the ground water levels to a dangerously low level. This is grossly against the rain water harvesting philosophy. Moreover, the morning walkers are bound to face the same problem as in the parks if all pavements on which they walk become hard surfaces.

Kindly reconsider the decision to convert the grass tracks into tiled ones.