Brussels flower pothole story inspires project in India

The story of a Brussels resident planting flowers in potholes has inspired a citizen-led campaign to do the same in five Indian cities.

Staff at Radio City in New Delhi invited listeners to get involved after stumbling upon The Bulletin's story about Anton Schuurmans' one-man protest against poor road conditions in the Belgian capital.

"We were really influenced by this initiative," producer Ankur Shrivastava told The Bulletin. "So we started our own campaign."

For the past fortnight, the City's Flowerpot project has sprung up in five cities in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Listeners have fully embraced the idea and sent in photos on Facebook and Twitter of themselves planting their own flowers in poorly maintained roads.

"The response was so amazing - we were not expecting it at all," Shrivastava said. "We received regular phone calls - listeners told us about potholes and we went there and planted flowers.

"Passers-by would stop and ask: what are you guys doing? What is this for? Then the listeners started participating themselves and bringing in flowers from their gardens for us to plant."

The Brussels-inspired campaign has also attracted the attention of several local authorities, who have thanked the radio station for their work and pledged to be more responsive to reports of poor road conditions in the future.