The MVR 84.4 million project was started in July 2022 with the intention of developing a 7.1 km asphalt road, install of a storm drainage system, and installation of streetlights.
PSM news
One of the biggest issues the Maldives has faced since the country started developing was the issue around the lack of walkable spaces in the city area. While the rest of the world is moving towards being more sustainable and developing pedestrian-friendly cities to move away from vehicles and encourage people to use bikes or start walking. However, when it comes to Male’ City, it has always felt like the city has been moving further and further away from any of these initiatives as Male’ is one of the least walkable islands in the Maldives.
Not only is Male’ City an un-walkable city, but the city also faces major issues in rainy seasons with the streets flooding as the drainage is constantly blocked causing severe difficulty in getting from one place to the other during the rainy season. This among several other issues finally led to the Road Development Corporation (RDC) being contracted with a streetscaping project in order to fix these issues in one of the most commonly used streets in Male’ City - Ameenee magu.
The MVR 84.4 million project was started in July 2022 with the intention of developing a 7.1 km asphalt road, install of a storm drainage system and installation of streetlights. The fieldwork for the development of Ameenee Magu officially started by the end of August 2022, and along with this came several criticisms revolving around RDCs' decision to cut down the trees in order to ease the process of constructing the road.
“As the water lens in Malé is quite shallow, the roots of these trees spread quite wide. Because of this spread, pipes and cables are damaged and face challenges when placing the pipes. We are not throwing away the trees after removing them; they will be relocated. After that, re-greening of the road will happen”
Finally, regardless of all the criticism, part of Ameenee Magu was developed and opened to the public on 6th March 2023.
While people are happy to finally see the developments on Ameenee Magu following almost a year of the public being unable to use this road for any type of transportation, however, problems started arising after a recent downpour and the public started to notice that the road, even after the re-development came with faults.
While the road was initially re-developed in order to resolve issues such as flooding during rainy seasons, after a down-pour the public started noticing that the re-opened part of Ameenee Magu still faced the same issue as the road remained heavily flooded after the rain.
Responding to the criticism and scrutiny by the public, RDC has said that the road is getting flooded as the project is not yet complete, and the public would not face this issue upon the completion of the project.
While this remains to be seen when the project is fully completed, there is no doubt that if the re-developed Ameenee Magu does not face the flooding problem during the rainy season, there is some hope for Male’ roads to be re-constructed to accommodate better to the public.
