A street is paved with luxurious granite slabs in HCM City. The city’s District 1 has just announced a plan to replace its entire street pavement with luxurious granite slabs estimated to cost roughly VNĐ1 trillion (US$44.4 million). — Photo zing.vn

HCM CITY — HCM City’s District 1 has just announced a plan to replace its entire street pavement with luxurious granite slabs estimated to cost roughly VNĐ1 trillion (US$44.4 million).

District 1 People’s Committee Chairman Trần Thế Thuận on Sunday said that the plan aimed to give the city’s central district a uniform and nice look with the granite paving on all 134 streets.

“The plan came from proposals of some enterprises and local residents who wished to make the pavement system in the city centre look classier,” said Thuận.

Some enterprises agreed to fund the plan and let the district repay the investment of about VNĐ1 trillion ($44.4 million) over three to five year, he added. The names of those businesses have yet to be disclosed.

District 1 authorities have been managing 936,000sq.m of pavement most of which was seriously degraded with the paving cracked or broken.

The Chairman said that the district People’s Committee still has to submit a detailed plan to the city People’s Committee for approval, which is likely to be no later than this week.

Once the plan gets the nod from city officials, district authorities will have to work with relevant services departments providing electricity, water or communications to make sure their facilities are all moved underground before the plan is finished.

“It will help to avoid the pavements being dug up all over again once the replacement is done,” Thuận said.

The first stage of the plan will include 80 streets in the city centre that covers many tourist spots. The work is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2016 on five pilot streets: Nguyễn Thái Học, Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai, Phùng Khắc Khoan, Đồng Khởi and Công xã Paris.

This is not the first time HCM City proposed to use granite tiles for pavements. Last year Nguyễn Huệ and Lê Thánh Tôn streets were floored with granite paving with an estimated lifetime of more than 300 years. — VNS