Stone chips will be Jusco’s new ammunition as it embarks on its mission of beautifying Jamshedpur.

The utility company — a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Steel that looks after the civic amenities in the steel major’s leasehold areas — has decided to introduce stones in what it calls “hardscaping” the barren lands of the city.

The stones will be used with trees, shrubs and plants (softscaping) to cover stretches in different localities of the city, especially near busy roads.

Speaking to The Telegraph general manager (business development and corporate services) of Jusco Rituraj Sinha said the beautification work would be carried out by the horticulture wing of Jusco.

Sources said Jusco had already initiated a pilot project using stones on a stretch of land in front of Sonari Aerodrome, which it claims has been a success.

Sources in Jusco (horticulture wing) added the entire exercise of beautifying the stretch in front of the airport had taken less than 10 days.

“Earlier, if there was a mound of sand beside the road, people usually used it to sit near it and gamble. So the challenge was to finish off work within the shortest possible time and ward off encroachment,” a source said.

The company during its Sonari experiment used organic manure (compost) as its topsoil and planted Mexican grass over the patch. They also planted date palm trees and Agave americana shrubs, besides lining the stretch with white quartzite stones.

“The stretch was around 100m long. We later fenced it to prevent encroachment and lit the area up properly. The project received an enormous amount of support from the local residents,” the source said.

“We will continue with our experiment of using flowering plants in beautification along with stones,” Sinha, general manager (business development and corporate services) , Jusco said.

Jusco spokesperson Rajesh Rajan said they would commence work on a couple of stretches like the Kadma-Sonari Link Road and some roundabouts near Dhatkidih.

“We will come up with similar projects for other areas of the city soon. The steering committee is likely to take a decision in this regard in the future,” Rajan said.