As Delhi keeps beautifying its roads, vanishing railings and grills tell a different tale

New Delhi: On the iron bridge close to ITO, the missing railings unfold almost like a disappearing act in plain sight, spotlighting an eyesore on Delhi’s roads that simply refuses to go away.As vehicles move from ITO towards Vikas Marg, the bridge begins with four silver GI pipes lining the parapet above the Yamuna. Then the gaps begin. One pipe is missing. A little ahead, another has disappeared.Soon, entire stretches where metal once existed now stand empty. Towards the end of the bridge, all four pipes vanish at some spots, leaving behind rusted joints, exposed gaps and open views of the river beneath.The problem is not limited to ITO bridge alone. Missing railings and broken divider grills have long been an eyesore on Delhi’s roads.

TOI found several similar spots where railings and divider grills had simply vanished.For instance, at the Laxmi Nagar loop, sections of railing were missing along the curve. Near Delhi Gate, close to the petrol pump, gaps had opened up in the divider grills. Just beside the recently inaugurated Shri Parth-Sarathi Rath installation, iron sections from the median had vanished, leaving uneven openings right around a newly beautified stretch.

Near Sarai Kale Khan, the dividers carried similar scars. Around Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, too, stretches of grills appeared snapped out or stolen entirely. Fresh paint, polished roads and landscaping stood interrupted by jagged empty spaces.According to a PWD official, “In case any asset like grill, railing or pipe is stolen, the general mechanism is that the police authority is informed in writing. Only after that can the restoration of the element begin.”

Restoration at many spots is on, he added, sharing photographs of ongoing work across the city.The culprit, according to sources, is almost always the same: scrap theft. “It is one of the biggest challenges in the city,” said a former PWD engineer. “Drug addicts or people desperate for money steal these metal grills and pipes and sell them cheaply to scrap dealers. They steal from residential colonies too. Anywhere there are iron railings, eventually some section goes missing.”The process of restoring the damaged infrastructure is painfully slow, he said. “An FIR is filed, but little happens after that. And replacing the railing is not immediate. First an estimate is prepared, then tenders are floated. Approvals are taken, and only then repairs happen. Till that time, the road remains damaged and ugly.”He said the issue has increasingly become an urban maintenance crisis for agencies trying to improve Delhi’s road aesthetics.

“PWD installs these railings as part of road planning, safety and beautification. But once they disappear, the entire stretch starts looking neglected. It destroys the city’s image.”That contradiction is now visible across Delhi’s roads. Over the past few years, agencies have spent crores on streetscaping projects with redesigned medians, decorative railings, thematic corridors, murals, lighting and landscaping, especially ahead of global events and summits. The idea has been to make Delhi’s roads look cleaner, more organised and visually uniform. But on the ground, stolen grills, bent barricades and broken railings are steadily undoing that effort.