The steel city will soon live up to its name, at roundabouts and road corners.

Urban art is expected to touch a new height of innovation in Jamshedpur as Tata Steel subsidiary Jusco, which looks after civic utilities in company lease areas, has initiated talks with a Delhi-based scrap artist and some city agencies for creating installations from scrap steel lying in its yards and using them to beautify roundabouts and corners of important arteries, where widening work is currently underway.

This will be a new step forward from converting scrap iron into eye-catching installations, many of which have found pride of place at Sakchi Boulevard.

"We had started using scrap metal art since January 2014 as a pilot project. Installations made of scrap metal and other junk have wowed the residents, which encouraged us to further challenge our creativity and imagination and here we are, experimenting with scrap steel. Talks are in the final stage with both city-based and Delhi-based scrap artists for creating art pieces out of junked steel lying at our yards. We expect the first such installation to be ready in a month or so," said Jusco spokesperson Rajesh Rajan.

Jusco's horticultural wing, which had installed the scrap metal arts on important roads and roundabouts in Bistupur and Sakchi, will be once again put on the job to select the probable sights.

"The only difference between scrap iron metal art pieces and scrap steel ones will be in the form of colour and shine. While in scrap iron pieces, bright hues were liberally used to attract people's attention, we will not be using any colour on the steel pieces so as to retain the original shine," said the Jusco spokesperson, adding that the scrap steel pieces had already been stocked at their yards in Bistupur and nursery inside Jubilee Park.

Some of the important roundabouts that boast scrap iron installations like phoenix, giraffe, giant mosquitoes, dragonflies, guitar and more include Sakchi Boulevard (Northern Town), General Office (Sakchi), Baug-E-Jamsheed (Sakchi), Voltas Roundabout (Bistupur), Beldih Triangle (Northern Town), Circuit House (Circuit House) and Sonari Aerodrome Roundabout (Sonari).

Most of these models are the handiworks of city-based sculptor and scrap artist Suvendu Biswas.

Steel art pieces, once they are ready, will be used to deck up roundabouts on Kharkhai Link Road, Tinplate- Kadani (Baridih) road and Agrico-Sidhgora roads.

According to sources in the horticulture wing, scrap steel pieces will be first cleaned and sketches of the designs will be given to a team to create the basic structure of the sculptures.

The team will have to ensure that the basic structure of an installation has sufficient strength to hold the weight of the finished item. The structure will be then modified by cutting and twisting it to give a shape.

Finally, it will be grouted with cement at the bottom to fix it while quartzite stones will be placed nearby to add to its beauty and prevent it from being stolen.

Suggest other creative ways to use scrap steel? Tell ttkhand@abpmail.com